Murder by the Bookend

by Laura Gail Black

  Grunt. “Uh-huh.” Sutter flipped his notebook closed. “It seems you think I needed to waste my time here today, looking at inventories rather than finding a killer?”

  My brows shot up. “I thought you should know books were missing from the library. Rare books. Maybe it had something to do with Linus’s death.”

  “Miss Quinn”—grunt—“I really don’t care that the library—a place full of books—took some of those books out of inventory for whatever reasons. I doubt someone would commit murder over old books.”

  “My uncle was murdered over an old book,” I reminded him softly.

  Sutter tucked his notebook and pen into his suit’s breast pocket. “Be that as it may, I have killers to catch. I don’t have time to follow hairbrained ideas and search for missing library books.” He turned and stormed out the door.

  As the door chimes sounded at his exit, I whirled to Keith. “Ooooooh, that man drives me crazy! I know you say he gets results, but he’s so bullheaded, I don’t see how he keeps from getting in his own way.”

  Keith chuckled. “I know. He’s close to retirement, and he wants a big splashy case to go out on. I don’t think library books fit the bill, in his opinion anyway.” He gave me a quick kiss and left, following his partner.

  “What now, boss lady?” Mason asked after Keith left.

  I tossed my hands in the air. “I honestly don’t know. I guess it’s a dead end.”

  “At least we can use those records to improve our own inventory runs, especially on our antique books.” The door chimes sounded, and Mason turned to greet the next customer.

  I walked to the back room and spread out the copies of the inventory sheets I’d made before turning the originals over to Sutter. Sitting at the desk, I studied the pattern Linus had found. Frustration bubbled up anew at not knowing what he had or had not sussed out by looking at these lines and lines of data, other than that books were missing. Were they really missing? Or was he tracking loans to other libraries? Was I making a mountain out of a molehill in my attempt to make sense of Linus’s death? Maybe Mason was right, and the most we could expect to learn would be how to improve our own tracking and inventory methods.

  Eddy and his grief popped into my head, and I called the vet.

  On the second ring, a receptionist answered. “Hokes Folly Veterinary Clinic. How may I help you?”

  “This is Jenna Quinn. I’m calling to check on Eddy. Is Doctor Bledsoe available?” I asked.

  “Please hold.” Silence sounded through the line. Not even tacky Muzak to listen to.

  While I waited for the vet to come on the line, I restacked the inventory lists by date and slid them into a folder, leaving it open to the most recent one. An idea nudged at the back of my mind, interrupted by the vet’s voice in my ear.

  “Hi, Jenna. Eddy’s doing fine. He’s up and mobile, and his kidney and liver numbers are stable, although his appetite is a bit low right now.” The sound of shuffling papers sounded through the line. “If you don’t mind, to be on the safe side I’d really like to keep him through the weekend.”

  “Of course. Whatever you think is best.” Relief poured through me.

  The vet had previously stated Eddy would pull through, but hearing about his improvement renewed my optimism. I thanked him and ended the call.

  My hand still rested on the inventory sheets. I slid my fingers down the line items, letting my mind run. Snatching the most recent printout, I stood. The idea rummaging around in my brain gelled into action. Walking through the store, I waved and motioned toward the front door to let Mason know I was leaving.

  I drove the short distance to the Hokes Folly Community Library, folder in hand, and made my way to their rare book section. Slowly I moved down an aisle, checking books off the inventory list. At least the shelves and the inventory list were arranged by subject and alphabetized within them. The only books I had to hunt for were ones that had been mis-shelved.

  An hour in and a third of the way through the list, I had discovered three misplaced books and one possibly missing book. However, I was beginning to receive odd looks from the staff. I smiled and waved, and the two librarians busied themselves with other tasks. Sitting on the floor, I made my way along a bottom shelf, continuing to check titles off my list. When I stood and rounded the corner into another aisle, I almost bumped into Douglas, who was striding toward the rare book circulation desk.

  I jumped back out of the way, hoping he hadn’t noticed me. I cringed when he spoke.

  “Oh, hello, Jenna.” He came to a halt and smiled. “Is there something I can help you find?”

  Darn it, I’d been caught. I forced my shoulders to relax and returned his smile. “I’m looking at your shelving methods for your antique books, whether it’s by subject, title, author, or age. I’m looking for new ideas for the store.”

  “Let me see your notes.” Before I could respond, his hand snaked out and tugged the pages from my hands. “I may be able to make some suggestions.”

  Wow, that just happened. I watched as his brow furrowed.

  He looked up, confusion etched in his gaze. “This is a printed copy of our inventory. Why do you have this?”

  As I answered, I reached out, just as he had, and tugged the sheets from his grasp. “Yes, it is.” I smiled sweetly. “When I picked up Eddy’s vet records from his home, the officer there accidentally gave me a folder of inventory runs Linus kept at home. We’re setting up our own inventory system at the store, and I thought it would be helpful to come here and cross-reference things, so I get a full picture of how and why you keep the records you do.”

  I watched his face for any signal that he thought I wasn’t being completely forthright about my motivations. Since he was married to one of my suspects, I didn’t want to tip my hand. They may not have had the most romantic of relationships, but who knew how much he shared of his day with her over dinner each night?

  Douglas smiled again. “Ah, I see. We use the Dewey decimal classification system in this section, just as in the rest of the library. Our inventory is set to run in the same fashion, which makes it less confusing when we print an inventory run to do a visual check once a year.”

  That explained Linus’s first two inventory runs a year apart. “I would have thought you’d do an inventory more often than that.”

  Douglas shook his head. “No, it’s really not necessary. As patrons cannot check out these books, like they can with regular library books, we don’t have the same issues with missing copies.”

  “Even from theft?” I snagged a book off the shelf. “I couldn’t stick one in my bag and walk out?”

  Douglas chuckled and crossed his arms. “Go for it.” He gestured toward the archway that led to the rest of the library.

  I strode across the room and stepped through the archway. An alarm sounded. As I turned to walk back to Douglas, my gaze swept across Alice, who hovered near the end of an aisle in another section of the library, a startled look in her eyes, obviously aware of the alarm’s meaning because of her time working at the library. She seemed to relax when she saw it was me, and she nodded at me and smiled before turning down the aisle. I walked back through the archway into the rare book area and handed Douglas the book.

  He waved a hand at the rare book circulation desk, signaling the attendant to silence the alarm. “As I said, we don’t have issues with missing copies. There are tiny magnets inserted inside the spine that set off the detectors if anyone tries to leave with a book.”

  In for a penny … I pasted an innocent look on my face. “What happens if you do discover a book has gone missing?”

  “More often than not, it’s simply misplaced among the shelves.” Douglas waved an arm to encompass the rare book section. “However, other times, it’s usually a book that has been removed to resolve an issue.”

  “Issue?” Surely he didn’t mean censorship.

  “As these books are quite old, some must be handled with extreme care. They may be moved to our climate-
controlled archive section and digitally scanned, eliminating the possibility of guests further damaging the book with hand oils.” Douglas pointed toward a set of computers. “Patrons can view the books on those systems.”

  “But wouldn’t those stay in inventory?” I walked toward a computer and saw instructions printed and taped to the table.

  “Of course.” Douglas nodded. “However, the printed inventory sheets usually contain only the books here in the main section, available for patrons to physically view. Another much shorter inventory sheet is used to check the books in the archive section. Do understand, though, there are times when we must completely remove them from our inventory. One time we discovered a book developing mildew. It was a newer book that had been donated through a patron’s will. It was removed and eventually destroyed, as the methods to remove the mildew would have caused extreme damage, and we could not allow the book to contaminate the rest of our collection. Fortunately, that is an incredibly rare occurrence.” He glanced at his watch.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ve been taking up all your time.” I sat at one of the computers. “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep looking through what you have here.”

  “Not at all. If you need any further assistance, one of us will be delighted to help you.” He looked at his watch again. “However, I do have a meeting shortly with a donor, so if there’s nothing else …?”

  I shook my head and turned on the monitor. “Nope, I think I’ve got this. Thanks for the overview.”

  I poked around in the computer system for a few minutes, getting a feel for it before I returned to my physical inventory of the books on the shelves. I might as well be thorough before making any conclusions.

  Three hours later, my stomach was rumbling, and my knees were sore from kneeling on the floor so often. My search had been fruitful, though, and I felt a sense of accomplishment. I had discovered three books missing from the shelves, and only one of the three had been moved to the archived section, according to the computer system. Two more books had been completely removed from inventory since Linus’s death.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Jenna!” A muffled voice came through my front door. “My hands are full. I can’t even knock!”

  I rushed to open the door, finding Keith on the other side holding three pizza boxes in the crook of one arm and a half case of beer under the other.

  “I come bearing gifts.” Keith grinned.

  Before I could step back, Mason pushed past me and grabbed the pizza boxes. “Yum! Just what we need.”

  Mason placed the pizzas on the table next to a stack of paper plates I’d already grabbed, while Rita took the beer and slid it into my mostly empty refrigerator.

  “Okay, gang, time for us to figure this thing out.” I herded everyone to the table.

  “Sure thing, boss lady,” Mason mumbled over a mouthful of pizza.

  Rita poked him in the shoulder as she took a seat next to him. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled and swallowed.

  I slid into the chair next to Keith. “Guys, I need your help. Someone tried to kill my dog, probably because they think he can identify them as Linus’s killer. We’ve got to figure this thing out, and I figure four heads are better than one.”

  Rita sipped a beer. “You said you’d found out more today.”

  “I did.” I nodded. “I went to the library today, under the guise of looking at how they run their inventory tracking processes. What I discovered is that two more books have gone missing since Linus’s death.”

  Mason whistled low. “That makes”—he looked at the ceiling and counted the tips of his fingers—“between thirty and thirty-five missing books in a year and a half.”

  Keith pulled two pieces of pepperoni pizza onto his plate. “That’s way too many at too steady of a pace to be a coincidence.”

  “I think your partner is missing the boat on this thing.” I took a slice of everything pizza and bit into it, burning the roof of my mouth on the melted cheese. I rapidly blew in and out to cool my mouthful of pizza off before I could chew it. I shushed my mother’s voice in my ear, which told me that was bad manners, by insisting it was okay because I was holding a napkin in front of my mouth so no one could see the food.

  Keith shook his head. “I don’t know. This could be completely unconnected. All we know for sure is some books are missing. At this point, we don’t have a strong enough link to tie it to the murder. At least not in Sutter’s eyes. Let’s just say I can neither confirm nor deny that he is convinced the case is coming from a political angle.”

  “I agree with Jenna.” Rita came to my rescue. “I think it’s a bit too coincidental that he’s tracking expensive books that have gone missing and ends up dead. What is it they’re always saying on the cop shows? Follow the money. My question is, if someone’s stealing books, who’s benefiting?”

  “And was it—” Mason caught Rita’s glare at talking with his mouth full and swallowed. “Sorry. Was it a big enough benefit to kill for?”

  “Hang on.” I stood and walked to the bedroom and grabbed my laptop off the dresser. When I returned with it, I opened a new file and started a list. “Okay, let’s write down each suspect, their motives, and how they might tie in to all that we know.”

  “Let’s start with Mr. Prescott.” Mason waved a piece of pizza while he talked, earning another glare from Rita. “He used to own Eddy. Eddy didn’t like him. He knew Mr. Talbot was going to talk to that newspaper reporter.”

  “That could have really hurt his chances in the election next month.” Rita wiped her fingers on a napkin before reaching for her beer. “As close as it is, this much sensationalism wouldn’t have had time to die down. Some folks would have ignored it, or they wouldn’t have cared. But he would have lost votes over the issue.”

  “But what about the book angle?” Keith asked. “Maybe he might need the money from stealing antique books and selling them on the black market. His campaign has to cost a fortune. But would he risk it? And how would he have gotten access to the books?”

  Rita swallowed. “He’s the president of the Friends of the Hokes Folly Community Library organization. A couple of years ago, they were remodeling a bit, and he had a key to let contractors in after hours. He could’ve kept it or made a copy once it was over.”

  “And from Uncle Paul’s notes, he would know what was and wasn’t valuable. He’s been a collector for some time.” I typed notes on my computer. “He was alone with Eddy too. When he came into the store, I was called away to help a customer.”

  “What about the lady with the fur coat? She’s a bit on the cray-cray side, if you know what I mean.” Mason spun a finger at his temple.

  I almost snorted beer up my nose before I could swallow and let a guffaw out. “You aren’t kidding!”

  “Didn’t you say Alice King told you about some incident where she stole Linus’s car as a teenager, and he pressed charges?” Rita asked as she slid another piece of cheese pizza onto her plate.

  I nodded. “Seems it kept her from going to the university she wanted, where she hoped to get a rich husband. She subsequently met Douglas, who she thought would inherit, but his father disowned him because he said she was a gold digger. She blames all of this on Linus pressing charges.”

  “She’d have access to keys.” Keith pushed away his empty plate and leaned back with his beer in his hand. “It wouldn’t be that difficult to make copies of Douglas’s keys.”

  “Lord knows she could use the money. Expensive clothes, expensive jewelry.” Rita waved her hand in the air. “And don’t even get me started on how much she’s spending on the ball this weekend. There’s no way she can afford all of that on Douglas’s salary, and she’s never worked a day in her life. Her daddy gives her a small stipend each month, but not nearly enough for what she spends.”

  “She did make a comment recently about how surprised she was that old books could be worth so much money.” I thought back to one of
my recent run-ins with the rude woman as I made more notes in my Word file. “She wasn’t ever alone with Eddy, but she could easily have tossed him a few balls of raw meat with crushed mothballs while my attention was on my conversation with Douglas.” I shoved away the guilt that threatened to rise at my lack of attention that might have gotten my dog killed.

  “As for Alice, I still think she’s a strong candidate for every piece of this.” Rita pointed at the computer. “Make sure you add her in.”

  “She did hate Linus, and at the same time she loved him.” I typed as I spoke.

  “That’s not an uncommon motive for murder.” Keith rocked his chair back on two legs until he caught my raised brows and plopped the legs back onto the floor. “Sorry. Bachelor life.” He grinned.

  My mind skipped, suddenly thinking of how it might be if he wasn’t a bachelor anymore. Whoa, where did that come from? I cleared my throat. “The woman is definitely an emotional roller coaster, that’s for sure. One day she can’t stand him, the next she can’t believe he’s gone, and he’s so wonderful. Then she won’t touch anything he’s handled, and later she demands to have the last thing he ever worked on.”

  Mason spun his finger at his temple again.

  “He also ruined her chances at a career in antique book sales,” added Rita. “And she could use the money. She’s working at a gas station now. She can’t be making much money to pay her bills.”

  “She’d have access to keys too.” My fingers flew across the computer keyboard, adding notes as they came up. “It would’ve been easy for her to have made copies while she worked there.”

  “And she was alone near Eddy when she first came in the day he was poisoned.” Mason reached for yet another piece of pizza.

  When I finished typing, I scanned through the list, and my spirits sank. “It looks like all we’ve done is prove they all had a strong motive, they all needed the money, they all could have figured out what books were valuable, they all could’ve gotten access to keys, and they all had an opportunity to poison Eddy.”