Overdue

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  “You’re thinking one of those men became jealous?” I asked.

  “Exactly. That he found out about the other men and decided to tell Carmen off. Maybe it just got out of hand. Maybe he had no plans of killing her. Then, maybe, she had her back turned toward him and he couldn’t resist the urge to get rid of her.” He shrugged angrily.

  My phone rang again and I gave Grayson a quick apology as I pulled it out to glance at it. This time it was Wilson, not Zelda.

  “Hi,” I said in something of a breathless voice. “Sorry, this is taking a while.”

  Wilson sounded a little impatient. “Did you get the books from Tanya? The library is very busy right now.”

  “Unfortunately, Tanya and I ran into a problem. I’ll tell you about it when I get there,” I said quickly. I hung up and said to Grayson, “Sorry, but I need to be getting back to work.”

  He smiled at me. “Of course. Sorry about holding you up.”

  I went straight to Wilson’s small office when I got to the library and filled him in. His face went from irritated to horrified in just seconds. “Howard is dead?” he repeated. “What on earth happened?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t think this is for public consumption. At least, that’s the impression I got from Chief Edison.”

  Wilson nodded his head impatiently. “Of course, of course. Why on earth would I idly gossip about the husband of a board member? I simply feel it’s important for me to be apprised of all the facts.”

  I took a deep breath. “Absolutely. I met Tanya in front of her house and we walked inside for the books. Tanya thought it was odd the door wasn’t shut.”

  “The door was open?” asked Wilson with alacrity. “There was a break-in of some kind?”

  “Not wide open, but slightly open. Just barely pushed and unlocked. It wasn’t what Tanya expected. She thought Howard was supposed to be at the office by then because he had a bunch of meetings scheduled.”

  “And he was inside?” Wilson shifted in his chair. He had a squeamish expression on his face.

  “I’m afraid so. In the kitchen,” I said.

  Wilson said, “That must have been very upsetting for Tanya. And, well, for you, too. Hopefully it was quick? I’m assuming it was a heart attack or cardiac event of some kind?”

  I shook my head. “No. It was murder.”

  His eyes opened wide. “No.”

  I said, “Which probably made the shock even worse for Tanya.”

  Wilson sighed and tilted his chair back to contemplate the ceiling. “What a mess. Maybe the library should do something as a memorial. A small plaque, maybe? Howard did a lot for the library, after all. We could rename the reading area the Howard James reading room or some such.” He looked sidelong at me for a reaction.

  I said, “I’m sure Tanya would appreciate the gesture.”

  “She was holding up all right?” asked Wilson.

  “As well as could be expected. She was heading off to see her mother while the police were investigating at the house. And she was trying to decide whether or not to tell her mother what happened. Then she was concerned her mother would find out from the other residents at the home.”

  Wilson winced. “That’s going to be hard on her. I know Tanya always handles her mother with kid gloves. I don’t know if you remember, but she’s brought her to library events before and has been adamant about making sure the events go perfectly.”

  “I remember,” I said. I reminded Wilson that I had very vivid memories of an author tea in particular. Tanya wanted the food to be just-so. That was fine, but she also wanted it displayed just-so and the library was using very basic serving platters and paper plates. She insisted on bringing over her family silver, bone china, and dainty teacups for the event. I was a nervous wreck the entire time, watching people juggle the china and the teacups as they stood around and chatted. Fortunately, no china was harmed during the event.

  Wilson looked as if his stomach hurt. “I also recall Tanya butting heads with Carmen during that event.”

  I could only imagine the stress it had caused Wilson. It had certainly made me feel uncomfortable. “That’s right. It was over something small, too. Carmen wanted to go with a red, white, and blue color scheme because the author was a veteran. But Tanya felt very strongly about purple and gold because they were her mother’s favorite colors.”

  Wilson nodded, wincing. “It’s all coming back to me. As I recall, Tanya won that battle.”

  “Yes. I had the feeling at the time that Tanya always wanted to be in control. But then, Carmen did, too. No wonder they clashed. And that’s just one example of many.”

  Wilson sighed and said briskly, “Well, this was a very harrowing morning for you. The best thing for you is probably to jump back into work, right? Answer another one of those Ask Fitz questions?”

  “Good idea,” I said dryly and headed for the office door.

  The library was definitely distracting. There was a sudden swarm of mothers and preschoolers when Luna’s storytime let out and it took a while to process them all because most of them had small fines for overdue books. Then there was a patron who needed help logging back into their Google account. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Google made it so difficult to recover a password. We worked on it for the better part of an hour and then finally had some success (after she phoned a family member who she thought might possibly be a backup account).

  When it was my break time, I hurried to the lounge with alacrity. I knew exactly what I was going to be doing, and it had nothing to do with Ulysses, despite the looming film club meeting. I was going straight to my September comfort read and consume some Reese’s chocolate eggs that were left over from a library-hosted Easter event. Easter was a long time ago, but surely Reese’s didn’t go bad that quickly.

  I had just settled down in the comfiest chair in the breakroom when my phone started ringing. I looked askance at it. Talking on the phone had nothing to do with my plan. Plus there was the fact I didn’t recognize the phone number.

  Sadly, it ended up being the mysterious number that prompted me to answer. I knew it wasn’t Zelda, after all.

  But when I answered the phone, it was much worse than a call from Zelda.

  A squeaky voice asked, “Is this Ann?”

  “Yes,” I said, frowning.

  “This is Kevin? Aunt Zelda gave me your phone number and said it would be all right to call you. Is this a good time?”

  My heart sank. I’d seriously hoped Kevin would tell his Aunt Zelda he had no intention of being set up and to mind her own business. Now my hopes were dashed.

  “Hi, Kevin,” I said. “Yes, Zelda mentioned you to me. I’m at work, so I don’t have very long, I’m afraid.”

  “How about if we go out to dinner tonight?” he said quickly, practically talking over the end of my own sentence.

  My heart sank even lower. “I’m afraid it’s been a pretty rough day for me today and I’m not really at my best. Are you available tomorrow? I know Zelda said you’d only be in town for a limited time.”

  Kevin quickly said, “Oh, I’ll be here for a couple of weeks. So we have plenty of time to see each other.”

  “I see,” I said weakly. “So tomorrow is all right? Should we do lunch?” I crossed my fingers. I only had a short lunch break. Would it be possible to confine this date to just a single hour? Surely Zelda didn’t expect any more from me than that.

  “Let’s do dinner since we’ll have more time.”

  Great. I said, “Sure, that sounds good. I get off at six tomorrow; will that work for you?”

  Kevin sounded pleased. “Okay. Where should we meet?”

  I thought quickly. There weren’t many places in Whitby. Quittin’ Time wasn’t exactly a date-night location, but the food was always good, inexpensive, and most importantly, the service was prompt and I could leave the date quickly if I needed to. “How about Quittin’ Time? It’s right on the square.”

  “See you tomorrow at six,” he s
aid.

  I hung up and sighed. My head was starting to hurt now. What was worse was that my break was nearly over. I sadly pulled out the Reese’s and ate them quickly before I headed back out to the circulation desk.

  I was just trying to decide whether to answer an Ask Fitz from a child who said his mom wouldn’t let him have a pet or one from an adult who was having a problem with his boss at work when Blake Thompson walked up to the desk.

  “Hi, Ann. I got a call from Wilson that the copier was acting up?” He gave me a broad grin, but I saw his eyes were tired. In fact, he wasn’t looking as tidy and professional as he usually did. His clothes were so wrinkled that I wondered if he’d slept in them. But then, looking at his eyes again, I wasn’t sure he’d slept at all.

  I said, “That qualifies as an emergency over here, believe me. It must be really bad this time or Wilson would just have asked me to fix it. I’ll show you where it is.” I left the Ask Fitz questions happily. I felt like maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to offer much advice about anything.

  We walked up to the small room where the printer was. “Here you go.” I paused. “You must be able to work on just about anything.”

  “No job too big or too small,” he said cheerfully. “Once I’m done here, I’m heading over to the mayor’s house to work on a backed up drain they’ve had issues with.”

  I winced. I knew Tanya had mentioned Blake was practically family. I hated to be the one to tell him what had happened, but it would be worse if he drove over to the house and saw all the police there.

  I said slowly, “You must have been tied up with something this morning.”

  “Actually, I was in the next town over, doing some electrical work for a small business. Why? What did I miss?” he frowned at my serious tone.

  I took a deep breath. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I like to take bad news standing.”

  “I’m afraid the mayor has passed away,” I said. It was too bad Burton wasn’t here when I told Blake. I tried to make note of Blake’s reactions, as I thought Burton would do if he was around.

  Blake took a step backward. “No way.”

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry. I know that you’re close with Howard and Tanya.”

  He was quiet for a few moments as if he was trying to wrap his head around it. “But I just saw him yesterday evening and he seemed fine.”

  I swallowed. “I don’t think he had a natural death.”

  “Not natural? You mean somebody killed him?” Blake’s eyes widened and he suddenly did sit down as he took this in. “What’s going on here? Two murders in Whitby? That’s crazy!” He rubbed the sides of his forehead. Then he looked up quickly, “I’ve got to go see Tanya. Have you heard anything about her?”

  I nodded. “I was actually with her when we . . . when we found Howard. She’s holding up all right, I think. She wanted to go see her mom and I thought that was probably good. That she wasn’t alone.”

  Blake was shaking his head. He said faintly, “I just can’t believe it.”

  I repeated, “I’m very sorry. I know Tanya said you were almost a member of the family.”

  He rubbed his eyes and when he spoke, his voice was gruff. “Yeah. They were good to me. I mean, they’re important people in town but they always made time to talk to me like I wasn’t just the guy who fixed things for them. Sometimes they host tennis players and they’d invite me over for dinner because they knew I liked to watch tennis. Used to play it in high school.”

  I had some vague memories of that, even though I hadn’t followed the school sports much. I had the impression he’d been very good.

  Blake seemed to be looking for me to say something, since we’d gone to high school together. “I remember you were a great athlete,” I said quickly.

  He said, “Still play tennis sometimes and try to go climbing as much as I can. I do some climbing.” He looked at me sidelong, waiting for a reaction.

  I made an impressed sound, although I thought rock climbing was incredibly dangerous.

  “You know, I can’t say I’m just totally shocked about this,” said Blake in a thoughtful voice. “I mean, I am totally shocked, don’t get me wrong. But the fact is, part of me always sort of expected some trouble. The mayor told me he’d get hate mail.”

  “Hate mail?” I asked, my eyes widening.

  Blake hastily amended this. “Maybe more like dislike mail, then. Anyway, people would get upset with him for rezoning areas, widening streets, that kind of thing. He told me about it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Howard could be pretty hotheaded, too. He and I occasionally got into it over stupid stuff. But we’d always make back up. Tanya was a peacemaker a lot of the time.” He looked at me. “Do you think it was somebody who got upset with him with official business?”

  I shook my head. “I really just don’t know. I’m sure the police will be looking at all the different options. Maybe you should tell them about the letters he received.”

  Blake shrugged. “Maybe. But Tanya probably will.” He sighed. “Now the cops are going to be investigating two crimes. I was hoping they would already have figured out who killed Carmen and put the guy behind bars.” A red flush rose up from his neck. “I still think it was Elliot. Who knows, maybe the two crimes are connected. Maybe Howard happened to see something that made Elliot look guilty.”

  He was definitely stuck on the idea of Elliot being responsible.

  Blake continued with this tantalizing possibility, “Elliot is the kind of guy who keeps his emotions all bottled up inside him until he explodes. That’s what I think happened with Carmen. She told him she wanted to end things with him and he was furious. It built up inside him for a couple of hours and then he came over to the library. Maybe he thought he was just going to talk with her . . . try to reason with her, or get her to continue their relationship.”

  “And then his emotions got the better of him?” I asked quietly.

  “Exactly!” Blake pounded his fist into his hand for emphasis. “Or maybe she rejected him again, when he was trying to persuade her to come back to him. That would have made him even more furious. Then he just reached out while her back was facing him and gave her a shove. It was unplanned and totally spontaneous, right? Wow, I hope he gets first degree murder and not manslaughter. Do you think he might get manslaughter?”

  I didn’t really want to speculate on the charges or the amount of jail time a library patron might be facing. Especially one who might be completely innocent. So instead I asked, “And you think Howard knew something?”

  “Why not?” said Blake with a shrug. “If Howard knew something, Elliot wouldn’t have been able to let that go. Otherwise, he’d have been living every single day wondering if the police were going to be knocking on his door any second. That’s no way to live, right? He had to get rid of him.”

  “Did Elliot even know Howard?” I asked.

  Blake laughed. “Howard knew everybody. Even the introverts. I’m not saying they hung out together or anything, but I bet you Howard knew Elliot. And who knows, maybe Howard had dropped by the library to see if Tanya was here and saw what happened.”

  “Maybe.” My voice sounded doubtful to my ears.

  He looked at me and gave a short laugh. “But you aren’t convinced. And no wonder you aren’t. Look at me. I’m a disaster right now. I can’t sleep. I’m totally scattered. I’m even missing tools and can’t figure out where they’ve gotten to.”

  I said, “That’s totally natural. Your mind is focused on other things. No wonder you’re absentminded.”

  One of our patrons came by, holding a stack of papers and frowning. “Hey, is the copier working yet?”

  Blake muttered, “That’s my cue.” He turned around to start taking the copier apart while I explained to the patron that it would be just a little longer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I got back to the desk and glanced at the clock, I realized I was going to have to scrambl
e to set up for film club. Fortunately, I’d done most of my prep work in terms of talking about Laura in advance, so it was just a matter of setting up chairs, the screen, and getting the film ready to start.

  While I was doing that, Timothy came in to join me. As always, he was relaxed and happy as soon as he entered the room. He was the kind of kid who was an old soul and who seemed to have a tough time fitting in among his peers. But as soon as he came into film club, he sparkled. Because he was homeschooled, his schedule was flexible enough to allow him to make it to film club and he always seemed to look forward to it.

  He was sure to ask me where I was with Ulysses, though. I winced inwardly, thinking about the lack of progress I’d made and how I’d been running to my Rosamunde Pilcher book for a comfort read. I decided it would be better to head him off at the pass and just go ahead and fess up.

  I said, “Hey, Timothy. Just wanted to let you know that I’m making some slow progress on the book. But the last few days have been crazy, so I haven’t gotten as far along as I wanted. I was hoping to be able to talk to you about it today, but I’m not there yet.” Nor, to be honest, even close.

  Disappointment crossed his thin face and I felt awful, but then he brightened. “No problem, Ann! Actually, that will give me a chance to read it for the third time. That way I’ll really have it fresh on my mind when we talk about it.”

  I felt relieved, even though this meant maybe I needed to be taking notes as I went. “That’s perfect. Thanks, Timothy.”

  Another film club regular, George, came into the room. George owned a typewriter repair shop on the square that gave every indication of being very successful, although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how. He must get lots of business off the internet was the only thing I could imagine.

  George clapped Timothy on the back as a greeting and Timothy grinned, even though I thought his gangly frame might topple forward from the impact. George said to Timothy, “So, we’re seeing Laura today. Is that one you’ve seen? Of course, you’ve seen almost everything, so I don’t know why I’m even asking.”