Moonshadows

by Mary Ann Artrip

  Hilda curled her lips into a spiteful sneer. “I guess when a certain person owns the building, that certain person doesn’t have to climb a stupid ladder looking for some dusty old history book.” She started to push back from her desk.

  Janet stepped across the room and snatched the card from Hilda’s fingers. “In the first place, I don’t own this building. And if I did, I wouldn’t use it as excuse to be rude. I’ll get the book.”

  Amanda Austin glowered at them as if they were three unruly children before turning back to her office. Chelsea muttered something about the day being too dreary for words and returned to the stockroom to unpack books.

  Reading the information on the card, Janet crossed the floor and started up the broad steps to the second level. From there she climbed the rickety stairs to the upper stacks that reached high into the domed ceiling. The neglected walkway groaned and creaked and she could feel the wood give beneath her feet. She reached for the ladder that was hooked onto a rod that ran around the curved wall.

  She had to climb to the last rung of the ladder. Even from there, it was quite a stretch to reach the very top shelf. She grumbled about the gross incompetence of supposedly intelligent people—space-planners who got paid a ton of money for their so-called expertise—to engineer such an inconvenient place for books.

  “If they just had to fill this space,” she muttered, “tract lighting would’ve been good, or even plastic ivy, for heaven’s sake.”

  Straining her body upward, she stood on her toes. Just as her fingertips touched the spine of the book, she shifted to one hip to get a fraction more reach. Suddenly the wooden rung splintered and collapsed beneath her weight, and her foot crashed down between the broken pieces, jarring against the rung below. Janet pitched forward and instinctively pulled back to avoid being slammed into the ladder. She clutched the sides to keep from falling and shifted all her weight to both feet, which were widely spaced on the lower rung. She shot a desperate glance over her shoulder at the fragile railing that was the only barrier to keep her from plunging headlong off the ledge. She clung to the safety of the ladder until she was able to bring herself back into balance and calm her racing heart. The book lay sprawled on the floor. Janet’s hand was still shaking when she picked it up and straightened the crumpled pages.

  Miss Austin raised an eyebrow as Janet strode into her office and plopped the book on the desk. Her fear had been replaced with anger.

  “We’re going to have to do something about those upper stacks,” Janet said.

  Amanda Austin crossed her arms and tensed her jaw.

  “Must we? And from where do you suppose the funds for such repairs shall come?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s dangerous up there. Just now, a rung on that rickety old ladder snapped and I happened to be on it at the time. If I’d fallen from that height, I could’ve broken my neck.”

  “Now Janet, you know how you tend to overstate a situation.”

  Janet clinched her fists. “Almost being killed is not exactly an overstatement. We have to make some repairs up there. I’m sure we can find the money somewhere. Holy cow, let’s have a bake sale or collect aluminum cans, or something.”

  “We’ll see.” The older woman seemed unconcerned. “But in the future, do try to be more careful. And don’t go around advertising the fact that we have an unsafe building. After all, my dear that would not reflect well on the Lancaster name.” She unfolded her arms and once again turned her attention to the work before her.

  As matters came and went in order of importance, it was evident to Janet that her safety was of little consequence to Amanda Austin, and she wondered why she wasn’t surprised. She dismissed the whole thing as just another incident that went into making up the daily particulars of her life.

  That weekend Janet and Chelsea attended the Hitchcock film festival. It was two a.m. when most of the theatre crowd gathered at the SRO Coffee House across the street. Janet and Chelsea settled into a back booth and shed their coats. Janet stifled a yawn.

  “Now don’t start that,” Chelsea said. “You’ll have me doing it, too.”

  Before Janet could reply, a youngish Cher look-alike came to take their order. The blue-black hair reached below her waist and fell straight as a plumb line. Her mascaraed eyes peeked from beneath a hedge of thick bangs. Bronze-frosted lips, outlined in ebony, moved in a steady rhythm of popping gum.

  “What can I getcha?”

  “Raspberry tea,” Chelsea said

  She glanced at Janet. “Two?”

  Janet caught a whiff of peppermint. “Yes, thank you.”

  The waitress moved away. Janet glanced around the room and recognized the figure coming through the front door. Stephen Prescott caught her eye right off, acknowledged her with a wave of his hand, and threaded himself in their direction.

  “A couple of Hitchcock fans, I take it,” he said.

  “Guilty.” Janet slid over. “Care to join us?”

  He dropped down. “It’d be my pleasure.”

  Janet pointed across the table. “Chelsea Parker, Stephen Prescott. He just moved into Middlebrook Arms.”

  He raked back his dusky hair and grinned. “All dry and everything.”

  “Do you usually go around wet?” Chelsea wanted to know, and flicked a glance in Janet’s direction. Janet recognized the arched brow as being a question of why she had not been told of this new development before tonight. “You didn’t tell me you had a new neighbor.”

  “Maybe she didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” he said. “Besides, I’ll bet her life is so—um—convoluted, that she has a hard time keeping her social calendar straight.”

  “I hardly think so,” Chelsea said. “Janet’s the most unconvoluted person I know. Oh, she may be a little ditzy now and then—but aren’t we all.”

  He glanced at Janet as if seeking confirmation.

  Janet nodded. “Actually, Chelsea’s right. I don’t keep a social calendar and I can’t remember the last time I ran into a stranger.”

  Stephen laughed. “And that’s exactly what we did.” He grinned at Chelsea. “You’ll have to get her to tell you how we first met.”

  Chelsea squinted at him. “You’re not from around here, are you, Mr. Prescott?”

  Stephen shook his head just as “Cher” returned with the tea. She lowered her lashes and gave him her best pout.

  “And what can I do for you?”

  “Cappuccino?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  She turned and swished away, displaying a little extra leg beneath the tight column skirt with the deep side slit.

  Stephen Prescott laced his fingers together against the edge of the table.

  “So tell me,” he said, “what do you two ladies do when you’re not enjoying murder and mayhem served up by the master himself?”

  Chelsea lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “We’re librarians.”

  “No kidding. You don’t look like any librarians I’ve ever seen.” His grin was full of mischief. “Where’s the eyeglass ribbon and the topknot with a number-two pencil stuck in it?”

  Janet smirked. “At home, wrapped up in our cardigans.”

  He nodded. “And I guess at your library you insist on complete quiet.”

  “The only way to keep out the riffraff,” Janet said, sipping her tea. “And how about you—what do you do when you’re not attending film festivals?”

  “Oh, this and that. Speaking of films, how did you two like the movies?”

  “Well, at least they held my attention,” Janet said, “which is a lot more than I can say about some of the garbage out there today. Hitchcock was a genius—in my humble opinion.”

  “Agreed. Which did you like the best?”

  Janet frowned. “Hard to say. To Catch a Thief and Spellbound were really good, but Notorious was awesome.”

  “You know, that’s always been one of my favorites.” He looked up as the cappuccino arrived. “Although I’m fully persuaded that Ingrid Be
rgman influences my thinking.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s the reason for it being one of my favorites.” He picked up the steaming cup, blew into the foam then set the cup down again. He looked across the table at Chelsea. “And what about you, Miss Parker. What do you think?”

  Janet turned to Chelsea and was surprised at how intently her cool, gray eyes were studying this stranger across the table from her.

  “About the Bergman movie?”

  Stephen nodded.

  Chelsea hesitated a fraction before she spoke. “I thought the movie was typical Hitchcock,” she said, “even if it was a little far-fetched.”

  Janet laughed. “Chelsea’s a pragmatist.”

  “You didn’t buy the storyline—didn’t think it was believable?” he asked.

  “Believable? Maybe. Probable? I doubt it.” Chelsea cradled her teacup. “You’re not married, are you, Mr. Prescott?”

  “No. But what’s—”

  “Just proves my point,” she said. “I mean, do you really think a woman could marry one man when she’s in love with another one? Do you really believe that?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “It depends on the cause; to balance the scales, so to speak. People do what they have to do. They may not like it, but they do it just the same.”

  Chelsea frowned. “Could you do that, Mr. Prescott?” she asked. “Pretend to be something you’re not, I mean.”

  Stephen Prescott shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not the point,” he said and sipped from his cup. “It was Bergman’s acting that was so convincing. We knew, because she made us know, how much she hated doing what she had to do.”

  Janet laughed. “You take your movies seriously, don’t you?”

  “I take a lot of things seriously, movies just being one of them.”

  “What else?” Chelsea asked. “What else do you take seriously?”

  Janet kicked her under the table.

  Undaunted, Chelsea merely cocked a golden brow and gave her a sweet I’m-helping-you-all-I-can smile.

  Even though he seemed oblivious to the shenanigans going on around him, Janet had a feeling that Stephen Prescott was laughing on the inside.

  He sipped his cappuccino. “Well, for one, pride in one’s work. Do the job assigned to you, and do it to the best of your ability.”

  “What if it’s a crappy job?” Janet said. “Something you hate doing.”

  “Do it anyway and don’t grouse. Something better will come along—it always does.”

  “Have you had any of those jobs?” Chelsea asked. “Crappy, I mean.”

  He laughed. “More than I can count.”

  “And something better always came along?”

  “Chelsea—”

  “I’m sorry, Janet,” Chelsea said. “But you know how I sometimes I get carried away with curiosity.”

  Janet yawned and glanced at her watch.

  “That’s your second yawn,” Chelsea said. “Fun’s over for tonight.”

  “Can I give you ladies a lift?”

  “We came in my car,” Chelsea said.

  He glanced at Janet. “Since we’re both going in the same direction, how about you?”

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind.” She looked at Chelsea. “It would save you from going out of your way, it’s awfully late.”

  Chelsea frowned. “Maybe you’d better come with me.”

  “If you’re worried about her safety,” Stephen said. “I promise to drive carefully and deliver her to her destination in the same condition you see her now—unless she drops completely off before then, in which case I’ll prop her up by her front door and trust her to the arms of Morpheus.”

  Janet laughed as Chelsea’s eyes—usually soft and compassionate—narrowed and pierced into Stephen’s. She seemed to be giving his threat serious consideration.

  “I was only kidding, little Mother Hen,” he said.

  Chelsea conceded a slight smile and gave a reluctant nod.

  Stephen took Janet’s arm as they crossed the street to his car. The slight pressure of his hand gave her a feeling of being protected and she realized how good it felt—how it took away some of the vulnerability she’d been feeling lately.

  The drive was less than fifteen minutes. Stephen parked his vintage ’65 Mustang a few spaces over from Janet’s car. Both were silent on the walk to her front door.

  “Thanks for the lift,” she said, fitting the key into the lock.

  “My pleasure. Maybe we can go out sometime.” He smiled. “Minus your protector, of course.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Goodnight. Sleep well.”

  “You, too.”

  Janet stood for a second in the doorway and watched Stephen’s retreating back. He walked with his hands tucked into his pants pockets, his body straining slightly forward.

  She watched as he crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the darkness of his apartment.

  It was after six the following Monday before Janet was able to leave the library. Hilda chose the same evening to stay over and work on the new coding system. They left the building together. The street was quiet in the early darkness and still damp from a light shower. Somewhere in the distance a door slammed and set a dog to barking. Neither woman spoke as they hurried down the sidewalk and stepped onto the street. Hilda’s head was crammed down into her hunched shoulders and she didn’t see the dark hulk of a car as it swung from behind the office building and sped toward them.

  Janet felt the car brush against her coat. Just before she jumped clear, she screamed, “Hilda, look out!”

  Hilda raised her head, her eyes wide in astonishment. The car struck with a terrible thud, tossing her into the air and flipping her a couple times before she hit the bricked alleyway. Then she lay still. The car gathered speed, roared away and disappeared into the black night.

  Kneeling beside the crumpled body, Janet groped for her hand. “Hilda, are you okay?” She probed the inside of Hilda’s wrist and couldn’t find a pulse. She snatched out her cell phone and jabbed in 911.

  Within minutes the street was filled with vehicles blaring garbled messages from their radios. Hilda’s body was placed on a stretcher, pushed into the back of an ambulance, and rushed away. Janet watched it all through dazed eyes.

  “Ma’am,” a voice said. Janet felt a touch on her arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Janet shook her head. “What?”

  “Are you okay? Maybe I better take you along to the hospital too. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to be checked out.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine—just shaken up a bit. May I go home now?”

  “Of course. Are you sure there’s nothing else you remember about the car?”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing to remember. It happened so quickly.”

  The man nodded. “Would you like someone to drive you?”

  Janet shook her head again and walked away.

  “I have your name and address,” he called after her. “Someone will be in touch with you tomorrow.”

  Janet’s trembling hands clutched the steering wheel as she drove home. Her mind reeled as it replayed the accident. Accident? A car with no lights on speeding down a skinny alleyway. Had it been an accident? Of course it had—no other explanation made any sense.

  Inside the walls of her apartment, Janet felt better. Safer. She needed to call Miss Austin to let her know what had happened. She dialed the number but there was no answer. Janet was desperate to talk to someone, to hear a familiar voice. She punched in another number. Chelsea answered right away.

  “It’s me.”

  “Hi.”

  “Are you busy—I mean, right now?”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “There’s been an accident, Chels. Hilda’s been hurt.”

  “An accident? What kind of accident? Are you okay?”

  “Just shaken up, but I don’t know about Hilda. The car was going awfully fast.”

  “Car? What car?
Don’t move. I’m on my way.”

  The line clicked.

  Fighting to hold back tears, Janet replaced the receiver. Just as the phone touched the cradle and cleared the line, the ringer pierced the air. She snatched her hand away, unnerved at the unexpected. Then she steadied herself and answered.

  There was only silence on the line. She could hear breathing, controlled and steady, but clearly audible.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

  There was a faint chuckle: “Riddle me rude, riddle me gallant. Who’s the fool without wisdom or talent?”

  Then the line hummed.

  Janet’s mind tumbled—riddles at a time like this. Stupid riddles. Speeding cars. She stood holding the receiver until a pounding on the door pulled her back to reality.

  “Janet.” Chelsea called from outside. “It’s me, open the door.” She pounded again. “Janet!”

  Janet whirled. “Chelsea,” she cried and tugged at the chain on the door.

  “What happened? An accident, you said.”

  Reaching for the comfort of Chelsea’s hand, Janet pulled her inside and slammed the door. The events of the evening caught up with her, and she could no longer control her trembling. Chelsea put her arms around Janet and led her to the sofa.

  “Take time to calm down,” she said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Thirty minutes later, Janet and Chelsea entered the emergency room of the Middlebrook Hospital. The corridor was empty and no one at the admitting desk. A tall, straight-figured woman in white rounded the corner and met them in the hallway.

  “Excuse me,” Chelsea said to the nurse. “Could you help us? We’re trying to find out about Miss Jamison—Hilda Jamison. She was brought in earlier tonight.”

  The nurse studied the clipboard in her hand. “Miss Jamison—the accident victim.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, I can’t give out any information. That would have to come from the doctor.”

  “Oh please.” Janet touched her arm. “Can’t you tell us anything at all? It’s very important.”

  “Are you family?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “But we are her friends.”