by Nora Page
Henry stayed put to “hold down the car.”
Tookey offered Cleo his elbow and gallantly escorted her over. He was promptly waved away by the mayor and chief.
“Here’s our brave librarian now,” Mayor Day said, eyes gleaming at the camera. “She’s weathered many a storm, our Cleo Watkins, and is looking forward to a well-earned retirement.”
The mayor looped an arm around Cleo’s shoulders and patted her upper arm—hard.
“Can you tell us what happened, ma’am?” the female reporter said, pretty face wrinkling in concern. “How are you feeling?
Cleo took a moment to steady herself. She thought of Ollie. He needed help. She thought of Mary-Rose, who was always so bold. She stepped forward, removing herself from the mayor’s sweaty grip. “I am fine, thank you so much. It’s the Catalpa Springs library system I fear for. Our bookmobile needs repairs and so does our historic library building.”
“Okay now, better rest your head,” Mayor Day said. His arm was back on Cleo’s shoulder, forcibly nudging her in the direction of off-camera.
Cleo held her ground. “Our mayor has been so supportive,” she said, her drawl pouring out sugary sweet. “You all must come back in a few months, when he’ll surely be cutting the ribbon on our repaired library.” Cleo remembered Bitsy’s tactic. If it’s not real, pretend it is and make it so. She forged on. “This awful spate of crime will have ended too. The attack this morning on me and my passenger shows the investigation was mistakenly targeting an innocent young man.”
She heard the mayor making hissing shush noises.
“Furthermore,” Cleo said, raising her voice, “the incident also shows the real murderer is desperate and making errors, leaving a clear trail of evidence. A new arrest—the right one—will be made shortly. I can feel it.”
Gabby was frowning as Cleo extracted herself from the reporters.
“I was totally with you when you outmaneuvered Day at his spin game,” Gabby said. “But you do realize you taunted a killer about messing up? And a ‘clear trail of evidence’? Were you bluffing? Or do you know something I should?”
Cleo knew nothing solid, and the more she thought, the less certain she was. “I only meant to praise the talents of the Catalpa Springs police force.”
“Uh-huh.” Gabby sighed. She nodded toward Henry. “Let your knight in shining PJs take you home.”
Cleo didn’t argue. TJ and Joe were rumbling in with their tow rig, and she couldn’t stomach seeing the full extent of her car’s injuries.
Henry drove slowly until the turnoff to downtown, his shop, and Cleo’s home. There, he sped up. They went barreling past at just above the speed limit.
“Where are we going?” Cleo asked. Weariness and aches were taking hold. She could use a long, hot shower and a longer nap.
“Pancakes and pie,” Henry said.
Cleo’s weariness lifted. “But aren’t you wearing pajamas?”
“The kids do it all the time,” Henry said, glancing her way and winking. “Why can’t we?”
* * *
Mary-Rose and the three peacocks greeted them at the parking lot, all ruffling their feathers.
“Cleo, good heavens,” Mary-Rose said. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I was going to call, but you never answer that cell phone of yours.”
“You heard?” Cleo said, and then again worried she might be concussed. Of course Mary-Rose had heard. The entire town would know by now. Even the peacocks seemed concerned. They cocked their iridescent heads, tiara feathers bobbing.
“You are pretty birds,” Cleo said to them. “You aren’t scary, are you?”
“They used to scare Buford away,” Mary-Rose said with a wry smile. “A lot of good that did any of us.” She held open the door to the Pancake Mill, shooing the curious birds so they wouldn’t come in too. “We’re busy today, but I held a table in reserve as soon as I heard, hoping you’d show up. Zoe’s already there.”
They entered to blatant gawking and light applause. Four pink-hatted ladies flocked to Cleo, who found herself in a swirl of air-kisses, perfume, and concern. They were led by Jasmine Wagner, VP of the Ladies League.
“You poor thing!” Jasmine said, tongue clicking. “How are you? How’s Bitsy? What were y’all doing out together so early?”
Cleo decided she might as well keep talking up the reality she wanted. “Bitsy said how the Ladies League was still firmly behind the library benefit,” Cleo said. “We were … uh…” Lying didn’t come entirely natural to Cleo. She touched her bumped head, and the ladies clucked sympathetically while shooting each other sharp looks. “We were planning,” Cleo said. “We were going to do some Gala organizing, and I picked Bitsy up.”
High color rose under Jasmine’s rouged cheeks. “Of course you were, and of course we’re supportive. We’d only had some concern because, well…” She lowered her voice. “That bookmobile crash and your grandson getting arrested for murder and all. That could be bad for publicity, you know. We tend to favor good causes, like redecorating the jail.”
“My grandson is innocent,” Cleo said. “The real killer will be revealed soon. I’ve just said so in a TV interview.” That wasn’t a lie. She had said so.
“Is that so?” Mary-Rose asked skeptically when the ladies had gone.
Cleo managed a weak shrug. Her neck and shoulders ached, and that crazy idea and a jolting pain kept banging around in her head.
Mary-Rose asked waitress Desiree for pie, pancake batter, chocolate chips, and extra syrup and whipped cream.
“Blueberries!” Zoe added.
“Extra blueberries,” her grandmother confirmed. “Healthy fruit, chocolate, and sugar. You’re looking a might poorly, Cleo, as our grannies would say. But better than poor Bitsy Givens, in the hospital. How awful.”
Cleo was glad Bitsy was in the hospital. It was her safety after she got out that had Cleo worried. Big pitchers of batter arrived. The tabletop griddle began to sizzle. Cleo helped herself to some chocolate chips and drifted in and out of the conversation.
Zoe drew her back in. “Look, Miss Cleo!” She pointed to a pancake spiral that filled the griddle. It was generously decorated with blueberries and chocolate chips. “Look what Mr. Henry and I made. Can you guess what it is?”
“A dragon?” Cleo said. She knew what her dear departed husband, Richard, would have deemed it: a disaster to flip. Oddly shaped and overly large pancakes were among Richard’s greatest peeves.
Zoe giggled. “Kind of. It’s a worm that likes books.”
“Of course, a bookworm,” Cleo said. “My favorite kind of worm.”
Henry watched her with concern. She smiled, but when the others turned to the tricky three-spatula turnover of the batter bookworm, she let her mind drift again. She saw the van speeding. She felt the crash. She saw the door open and the hand in black leather. Did she see the driver? No, she’d seen a blur, a mask, the glove, the metal … and, she finally acknowledged with a shiver, the barrel of a gun.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cleo watched the news at five o’clock, tuning in to the station that had interviewed her, the “local” news out of not-so-local Valdosta. The Catalpa Springs story was teased with gruesome graphics, a knife dripping red over Fontaine Park. There wasn’t any knife, Cleo thought with irritation. There was a van, a gun, faulty brake lines, a stone arm, and a crime-scene scarf. She fluffed a throw pillow, which Rhett promptly began kneading. The mayor wouldn’t like the unpleasant graphic of their town either. On this, at least, she and Mayor Jeb Day could agree.
Commercials dragged on, followed by an unsurprising weather forecast: weather you could wear, hot and muggy with a chance of afternoon storms. After dull details regarding the Valdosta school board, Catalpa Springs was up.
“Listen closely, Rhett,” Cleo said. Rhett purred louder. Cleo raised the volume. There was Chief Culpepper. He insisted the investigation was going well. “Beautifully, just fine. There is an art to investigation and—” A wise editor made a judicious chop of the c
hief’s lecture. They cut back in, with him pushing out his suspenders and declaring, “We have made an arrest. A young, unemployed local man engaged in radical environmental action.”
“Oh!” Cleo exclaimed in frustration. Rhett took no heed and continued working on the pillow.
“Oh dear,” Cleo said next, for her face appeared on the screen. The camera resolution was too good. It picked up the sickly greenish bruise around her eye, the scrape from Whitney’s boot, and the fresh red welt on her forehead. She looked like a boxer. A losing one! She assured herself that—as was always true—it wasn’t looks, but words, that mattered. She listened to her speech about the killer. Gabby was right. Cleo had sounded a tad taunting. “The library,” she said to Rhett. “Where’s the part about the library getting fixed?”
A glittery smile took over the screen, as if the story had shifted to dental whitening. Mayor Jeb Day beamed at the camera. Cleo felt her blood pressure rise. The reporter must have interviewed him again after she left.
“Yes, our Miss Cleo is a living treasure,” Jeb Day was saying. “Why, she might even be Georgia’s oldest librarian. We’ll surely be sorry to see her retire, but with this new accident and her advanced age, well, she’s overdue for a well-earned rest.” He grinned anew at his rude pun.
Cleo gripped a throw pillow.
The reporter put a dent in Jeb’s fun. “We heard this wasn’t an accident, but a hit and run, a would-be homicide. Can you comment on the Catalpa crime spree?”
Chief Culpepper popped into the image. “No comment on ongoing investigations other than to say that amateurs should stay clear. Let the experts do their work.”
“So true,” the mayor agreed smoothly. “Y’all come back when the chief has this wrapped up. And keep watching for our fine new fishing pier, where the bass will always be biting.” He waved his hand like a game-show hostess toward the Tallgrass, flowing serenely beyond Cleo’s crumpled car.
Cleo chucked the pillow at a nearby armchair. Retirement! A living treasure! Overdue!
Rhett groomed his backside, which Cleo read as an indictment of their impertinent young mayor. “Exactly,” she muttered. Anger vented, Cleo slumped into the sofa, thinking the worst of the story must be over. The camera cut back to two anchors murmuring about awful business. “Is there any good news from Catalpa Springs?” the female reporter asked.
Her male colleague smiled. “Yes, indeed. As the mayor hinted, that tiny town is angling to become a world-class fishing destination. I hear you can bet on it!” He proceeded to extol the floating casino.
Cleo reached for another pillow.
* * *
The next morning, Cleo blearily jabbed on the coffeemaker and treated Rhett to a hefty helping of his favorite seafood dinner. She ate grim, sugar-free, fiber-tough cereal and drank a cup of coffee, then another. By the dregs of her second cup, her thoughts were back to the place they’d begun, where they’d been throughout her restless night.
“Should I ask her?” she asked Rhett.
He meowed loudly, demanding more food.
“You’re right,” Cleo said, deliberately misinterpreting. “I shouldn’t, but what other way is there?”
The bank opened at nine. Cleo bided her time, visiting with Dot at her shop and walking around the park. At ten, she went to find Leanna, hoping her young friend would have time for a break. She found Leanna in her “office,” a cubicle just off the lobby, stuffed with towers of loose papers.
“I’m making headway,” Leanna said, pointing to a shorter stack. Out in the lobby the tellers laughed, and Cleo heard the unmistakable cackle of Kat Krandall-Stykes.
Cleo hesitated about revealing her purpose. “I was just walking by,” she said, feeling she should walk straight back out. She had no business involving Leanna.
“You felt it, didn’t you?” Leanna said with a big smile. “You sensed I had good news!”
Cleo dutifully asked. “I must have. What’s the good news?”
“Mr. Givens wants to hire me full-time!” Leanna said. She cleared papers from an armchair by the window and gestured for Cleo to sit.
“That’s wonderful,” Cleo said to be polite, her urge to leave growing stronger. She surely couldn’t ask now. But the killings … and Ollie.
Leanna lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t know what to say, honestly. It’s a big-time compliment, and I’d have more money for school, but no time to study. Banking’s not as fun and fulfilling as my library work.” She kept her voice low and leaned closer. “Why are you really here, Miss Cleo? Is something wrong?”
Cleo took a deep breath. “I was thinking about Buford Krandall and blackmail, and I was wondering how difficult it is to check a person’s bank account.” She paused. “Hypothetically, of course.”
Leanna cut her off. “Who should I look up?” she asked, fingers poised over her keyboard.
Cleo immediately tried to talk Leanna out of her own plan. Once the words were actually said, it sounded illegal and dangerous, most of all for Leanna. Cleo chided herself. What had she been thinking? “No one. Honestly. I shouldn’t have come. I was brainstorming, that’s all.”
“About who?” Leanna insisted. “Do you think you know the killer? I can check. I’m updating accounts to our new system. I’m in all sorts of accounts and screens all day long. Make me a list. If we can help Ollie and catch a killer, I’ll take the risk. I want to!”
Cleo dithered. She stepped out the cubicle door, but then back in again. She wrote Leanna a list. Back home and waiting, she wondered if she’d made her list too long. She had one main suspect, possibly two, but she’d given Leanna five names. Cleo spent the rest of the day checking the time, cleaning her house, and reorganizing her pantry. Leanna said it would take her a while, as she had to fill in for tellers throughout the day.
By late afternoon, Cleo could stay cooped up no longer. She put on her walking sandals and tucked her phone in her purse. Rhett lined up to join her, looking too happy to burden with his harness. Cleo put on a sunhat, and she and Rhett strolled leafy streets. They ended up at the library.
The humidity heightened the skunky, damp scents inside. Cleo wished she had fans or air-conditioning, but the electric was shut off to the whole building. She opened the doors and windows to let in fresh air. She found a few books in the returns box and recorded their numbers and found their places on the shelves. It was nice to work, even if she felt like the captain mopping the floors of her sinking ship. Rhett snoozed on his favorite window seat.
Just before six, her phone rang.
“Miss Cleo?” Leanna’s voice was between a whisper and a gasp.
“Leanna, are you all right?” A wave of worry and guilt crashed over Cleo. She never should have asked Leanna to check those accounts.
“I’ve got something!” Leanna said, words tumbling. “I’m sorry, but I so wanted you to be wrong about a name on that list, but now I think you’re right, and it’s all really wrong. I’m not making sense, am I? Are you at home? I’m just leaving the bank, walking your way.”
“I’m at the library,” Cleo said. She started to ask Leanna a question but then realized she was speaking into air. Leanna had hung up.
Cleo sat with Rhett, watching out the window. Leanna arrived at a speed walk, high-heels in her hand, her stockings springing runs.
Leanna thrust pages at Cleo. “Look, it’s a separate account, set up before Buford Krandall was killed. Big deposits in cash, then big withdrawals, and then the murder and nothing. How’d you know?” She sat down heavily beside Rhett.
“We don’t know yet,” Cleo said. She stared at the page and the name on the account: Liza Blackwell. Liza, now Bitsy. It wasn’t quite what Cleo expected. She mulled over the possibilities.
“It might not be what it seems,” Cleo said. “We’ll talk to Gabby. She can investigate from here. We can say you came across this account inadvertently as part of your work.”
Gabby would know it was a lie.
“Goodbye, bank job,”
Leanna groaned. “Mr. Givens will know I was snooping. I actually had a legit reason to get into those other accounts, but not this one. I’ll be lucky to be a dancing biscuit again. Oh no—do you think what I did is illegal? I’ll have a record!”
Guilt pressed heavily on Cleo. She’d been selfish, thinking of ways to solve the problem, to save Ollie. She’d been thinking of Leanna’s computer skills and cleverness, not the implications for her young friend’s future.
Leanna shuddered. “But none of that matters if you’re right.”
A noise startled them both and made Rhett throw back his ears. Rapping at the front door and footsteps in the foyer. Leanna drew a sharp breath.
“Hello?” A voice like sour lemons came from the front. “Why’s the door hanging open? Flies and mosquitoes could get in.”
Maybelle could get in. Cleo wished she’d kept the library locked up tight.
Leanna exhaled. Cleo thought her relief might be premature. Of the two persons at the top of her suspect list, one was Maybelle Givens.
“Sorry, library’s closed!” Cleo called out, but footsteps and thumps were already heading their way up the central hall.
Maybelle Givens brandished a cane with three prongs, the kind that allowed the stick to stand on its own. Cleo imagined the prongs morphing into points, a devil’s fork. She met Maybelle’s glare with a stern, steady look of her own.
“See this?” Maybelle brandished the cane. “I have to use it because my knee still hurts from that bus crash. You crashed Bitsy too. Her knee’s all scratched up. Thurgood Byron says we could sue.”
“He would,” Cleo muttered. She didn’t want to take any more chances, especially with Leanna’s safety. She nudged her young colleague. “Go find Gabby,” she whispered. Leanna’s eyes widened. “Go,” Cleo said firmly. Then, as a cover said loudly, “Go to the staffroom and find those books we stored back there, Leanna.”
Leanna turned and trotted off. Cleo tracked her progress by the slap of her feet down the hall.
Maybelle gave an appreciative snort. “Vern likes that girl,” she said. “She’s good with getting stuff done. Cuter too since Bitsy got after her. Could lose a few pounds or ten.”