Murder by the Bookend

by Laura Gail Black

  Mason rested a hand on my back. “Hey, I really would have defended you if Keith hadn’t shown up. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you.”

  I raised my gaze to meet his and smiled with trembling lips. “I know you would have. But I’m glad you didn’t. There’s no need to put you in Detective Sutter’s crosshairs again.”

  “Are you okay?” Mason awkwardly patted my back.

  “I am.” I took another deep breath, letting it out slowly. “At least I will be. The whole thing just brought back some memories I’d rather not have.”

  Mason’s hand dropped as I sat up. “Oh, yeah, the jail thing in Charlotte. I almost forgot.”

  I chuckled, releasing more of the tension. “I sure wish I could.” I closed my eyes, squeezing out the images flashing in my brain. If there was some way I could erase that whole half a year of my life, take it out of my memory, I’d be a happy camper. I shook my head and opened my eyes. “For now, we have to catch a book thief.”

  Mason slid down in his seat, plugging his earbuds in again. “And maybe a killer.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next few hours passed in a daze. Mason remained alert, although he kept his earbuds in, listening to his book. I knew without asking that he was beating himself up for not coming to my rescue. However, my own swirling thoughts of my months in jail, the rough handling, both emotionally and physically, by the police department, and the loss of my entire life sucked me down into a quagmire of regret, anger, and fear, to the point that I had nothing left with which to try to comfort him. Instead, I sat silently, drinking copious amounts of coffee and desperately trying to push back thoughts of Charlotte that threatened to overwhelm me.

  Lost in the depths of memory, I jumped, a small scream bursting from my throat, when Rita yanked open Mason’s door.

  “Hello, hello, my little sleuthing friends.” She grinned in at us, the smile slowly ebbing as she took in our somber expressions. “Uh-oh. What did I miss?”

  Mason glanced at me then Rita. “I’ll let her explain.” He slid from the car but leaned in again before walking to his own car. “I really am sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

  I reached out and squeezed his hand where it rested on the seat back. “Mason, it’s all okay. I’m okay. None of this was your fault. I promise. And you’re the one who saved us from that awful manager who was videoing it all with her phone. Without your attention to that point, it could have gotten ugly. I’m deeply grateful.” Gads, now I was babbling. I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

  He nodded and pasted on a smile, which looked more like a pained grimace. “Okay.” His slumped shoulders as he walked to his car said it was anything but okay.

  Rita plopped down beside me and shut her door, pulling blankets from the back. “Man, it’s cold tonight. I think the weather said it was going down to thirty-eight.”

  “Something like that.” I held up a mug. “Want some hot coffee?”

  Her hands wrapped around the mug as I poured, and she took a long sip before pinning me with her gaze. “What in the world did I miss?”

  “In a nutshell, the manager here called the cops on us because she thought we were casing the store.” I screwed the lid on the thermos and stuck it in the back seat.

  “Oh, don’t tell me.” She leaned back and slid a foot from her shoe, tucking her toes under her other leg. “Please say it wasn’t Frank Sutter who showed up.”

  “The very one.” I nodded and filled her in on what had happened.

  “And here Mason was, jealous because he missed out on the street sweeper a couple of nights ago.” Rita reached for a sandwich in the cooler. “I’d have loved to see Frank’s face when Keith all but punched him and Keith’s temporary partner ordered him around.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, that part was a bit on the satisfying side.”

  “Seems the bully got his just dues.” Rita bit into her sandwich, getting a tiny smear of mustard on her finger.

  “Oh, it’s not over yet.” I handed her a napkin. “Once they show their captain the video—”

  “They have video?” Rita whooped and fist pumped. “Take that, you jackwagon!”

  “Yes, they had turned on their dash camera before they got out of their car. Everything that happened was caught.” I held a hand up. “Don’t get too excited, though. Sure, Sutter will get raked over the coals and will probably be put on desk duty until he retires in the spring. But if this leaks out, it’s going to be ugly for my store.”

  Rita, caught with her mouth full, rolled her hand in a request that I keep explaining.

  “Think about it. If someone leaks this video to the news, some eager reporter looking for a splashy headline will link it to Twice Upon a Time.” When Rita’s blank stare told me she wasn’t following my train of thought, I continued. “In the last three months, the store has been linked to the following.” I held up a hand and ticked my list off on my fingers.

  “One, my uncle’s murder. Two, my arrest situation in Charlotte, possibly a murder and embezzlement. Three, a second murder tied to my uncle’s. Four, both murders being pinned on me. Five, Linus Talbot’s murder. And if they can, six, Eddy’s poisoning at the store, although I don’t think the news media is aware of that yet.” My heart twinged as Eddy’s face floated through my mind. Right now, I could really use a hug from my dog. I was amazed anew at how quickly and deeply I’d bonded with the animal. Thank goodness he’d be coming home in two days. Monday morning could not come soon enough.

  “I honestly hadn’t thought of it in those terms.” Rita wadded up her napkin and stuck it inside the sandwich baggie before tossing both into the grocery store bag I’d brought for trash.

  “Yeah, well I have.” I sighed deeply and leaned my head against the driver’s side window, letting the cold glass help ease the tightening band of pain from a forming stress headache. “All I need is for one more police incident to be tied to the store, especially one where it looks like I’m being arrested again.” I held up my hand to forestall Rita’s interruption. “You know they’d edit it to get the most shock value from it, and by the time we put the full video online or somehow got the police to give some sort of statement to the contrary, the damage would already be done. It would be too little, too late.”

  Rita sank back into her seat, lips pursed and brows pulled tightly together. “We’ll have to hope that doesn’t happen.” She raised her gaze to mine. “Trust Keith. It’s a small department, and I’m sure folks there know he’s quite attached to you. They wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Except for Detective Sutter.” I sipped at the last of the coffee in my mug and reached for the thermos.

  Rita laughed. “I doubt Frank would want that video to go viral. It doesn’t exactly show him in the best light, and he wouldn’t want his image damaged.”

  A grin pulled up one corner of my mouth. “True. Maybe there’s hope after all.”

  “As my grandmother used to say, ‘Don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow.’” She shifted and pulled the blankets from her lap, reaching for her door handle. “After that sandwich and the coffee, I need to make a quick run to the ladies’ room.”

  I helped her untangle from her cocoon of blankets. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

  She stepped from the car. “See that you are. You promised Keith you’d call if you saw anything.” She shut the door and jogged toward the Piggly Wiggly on the other side of the long-closed farm supply store.

  I looked at the clock on my phone. Three fourteen AM. Only a few more hours to go, and I could finally get warm. I glanced in the rearview mirror, losing sight of Rita as she strode through the darkened grocery store parking lot. My gaze dropped from the mirror to the library parking lot in front of me. I swept my eyes from one side of it to the other.

  In the quiet darkness, Keith’s face, full of barely controlled rage, formed in my mind. The way he’d looked when Sutter had grabbed me … While I definitely didn’t want to see Keith ever get into a physica
l altercation because of me, it was a strangely comforting feeling to know he would protect me if the need truly arose. The fact that he’d kept a handle on his fury was a testament to his self-control. A lesser man would’ve let fists fly. My ex-fiancé, Blake Emerson, shoved his way to the front of my memory, and I corrected my internal statement. A lesser man wouldn’t have cared one way or another, except for how it affected his own image. Keith’s determination to protect me spoke volumes about how he truly felt about me.

  I startled back to the present as a brief movement at the edge of my vision caught my attention. I sat up straight, hands gripping the steering wheel, my body leaned forward, my eyes straining to see into the darkness. The tiny sliver of a moon did little to illuminate the parking lot.

  There! I’d seen it again. This time I knew it was a person easing around behind the building, disappearing toward the back entrance. I grabbed my phone and dialed Keith’s number. No answer. I called again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I left a voice mail and hoped he’d hear it in time.

  Frustrated, I looked back across at the Piggly Wiggly. No sign of Rita either. I grabbed a notepad from my purse and wrote a quick note telling Rita I was going to sneak around to peek at the back of the library to make sure I’d actually seen a person, and that I hadn’t been able to reach Keith.

  I eased my car door open and quietly snicked it closed again, hesitating for a moment as the sound seemed to echo through the darkness. Movement behind the building caught my eye again. Carefully, I crept along the line of trailers in the parking lot, somewhat masking my approach from anyone in the library lot. When I had a good line of sight to the back lot, I hunkered down and waited. Nothing moved. I strained my eyes, hunting for any sign of a person.

  My eyes swept across the back of the building, catching a dark gap along one side of the door. It was cracked open, but no light spilled out. Someone had gone inside but hadn’t turned on any lights.

  I looked back across the farm supply store’s lot toward the Piggly Wiggly. Still no sight of Rita. I dragged my phone from my pocket, shielding it inside my coat to see if I’d missed a return call or a text from Keith. Nope.

  Determination pushed caution aside. We’d sat for days waiting to see if someone came to the library in the night, and I’d be damned if I was going to let whoever it was get away with more books while I sat there in the cold like an idiot.

  I eased across the library’s back lot, hunkered low, and ran to the side of the building, where I pressed myself against the bricks and waited. The lot remained silent and still, and I slid along the wall toward the door, trying to form a plan of action should someone emerge before I could conceal myself again.

  When I reached the door, I hesitated. I’d promised Keith. But then, in a way, Keith had also promised me that he’d be available if I called. My mother’s voice chided me, telling me to stop trying to find loopholes, to stop being foolish. I mentally shut her down and eased the door open enough that I could shimmy through it into the darkened room beyond.

  Once inside, I gave my eyes a moment to try to adjust, finally making out the faint outline of a doorway that led, I hoped, into the main library area. I couldn’t see anything but that doorway, so I shuffled my feet slowly, trying not to trip over anything. As I closed in on the doorway, my upper thigh raked across the corner of a table or desk, and I barely managed to keep a yelp from escaping. That would definitely leave a bruise. I eased sideways a step and moved toward the doorway again, finally reaching the frame. The front counter sat a few feet away, and I ducked down, scooting through the doorway and skittering underneath the solid surface.

  I listened. A thud—a book dropping? I froze, breathing shallowly, trying to pinpoint the direction of the sound while mentally making a map of the library. I’d only been in the rare book section once, but I was pretty sure the sound had come from that area. I took a deep breath and slipped out from behind the counter in a crouch, tiptoeing toward the sound.

  A dim light, as if a flashlight were muffled with cloth, swept out across the room, and I flattened myself against the floor near a freestanding shelf of videos. The light swept across once more and disappeared. I waited a moment, rose to my hands and knees, and crawled to the opposite end of the shelf. Easing my head out, I caught sight of the dim, bouncing light again, sweeping through the enclosed glass section where the more delicate rare books were housed.

  My pocket buzzed, and the sound echoed loudly in the silent room. I ducked and fumbled for my phone, dragging it out. Keith had texted.

  Sit tight. On my way.

  Relief surged. I pushed the button to blank the screen again, realizing too late that, even if they hadn’t heard the buzzing from the glassed enclosure, my screen light would have shone like a blazing sun in the dark room. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and leaned my head out to look for the flashlight again. Nothing. Had they seen my light or simply finished what they were doing? My stomach tightened. Logic dictated they’d use the light to get back to the door to leave, even if they were done. I’d been seen.

  Flattening myself, I belly-crawled as quietly as I could, like I’d seen in war movies. I didn’t need to be in here now. Keith was on his way. If I stayed put, I was a sitting duck, since they’d seen my light. I had to get out of the open aisles. After slowly crawling past two shelf sections, I rose to my hands and knees, crawling until I got behind the front counter, the door into the back room only a couple of feet away. I eased into a crouch and moved into the pitch-black room, picking my way through, carefully avoiding the furniture I’d bumped earlier.

  I knew the exterior door lay just ahead, but I couldn’t see its outline in the dark room. Someone had shut it. I held my hands out in front of me, stepping forward in small steps until my fingertips brushed the wall. I slid along the wall until I found the metal door, and my hands dropped to the crash bar to push it open. The bar barely moved. What the hell? Weren’t these things supposed to open from the inside, even if they were locked? Some kind of safety standard? I slid my hands along the bar, my fingers catching hold of a rope looped through the bar. Blindly following the rope with my hands, I found it also looped around the leg of a piece of furniture which seemed to be bolted to the floor.

  Now there was no doubt I’d been seen. Whoever I’d seen had gotten to the door first and had tied it shut. My brain worked past this and realized this meant they’d known I would come. They’d planned for this. They’d brought rope. I was trapped in the building, possibly in the pitch-black room, with a killer, my only way of escape now blocked. Fear sliced through me, shredding my self-control. I stifled the scream that wanted to erupt, pressing my hands hard across my mouth. Panic surged, and I fought against it. Think, think, think! The front door.

  I groped my way toward the front room again, catching my thigh on the furniture once more. Tears filled my eyes, from both pain and terror, and I caught a small sob before it could make too much noise.

  Freezing just inside the doorway in the darkness, I scanned the outer room and the pathway toward the front doors. Maybe I could get out that way … unless someone had locked them as well. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled, weaving my way through the aisles toward the front doors. As I reached the open entry area, I understood how an animal must feel when it runs out of woods and has to cross an open field with a predator hot on its trail. I scanned the area. All clear.

  I stood and raced for the doors, not caring if I made noise at this point, skidding to a halt when I realized these weren’t crash bar doors, and they were locked. Panic surged anew. As I whirled to run for a hiding place, something heavy slammed into the side of my head, hard enough to bounce it into the solid wood of the front door. My hands grasped at the door handle for balance as I fell to my knees, the room spinning. Another blow, another hard smack against the wood, and I crumpled to the floor, too dazed to move.

  Unconsciousness tugged at me, and I fought to stay awake and as aware as possible. Sloshing sounds echoed in my ringing ears
. A smell. What was that? It was familiar, yet I couldn’t place it. I struggled through my mind’s darkness, willing myself to open my eyes. A form moved through the stacks with a canister, shaking its contents out onto the bookshelves. My brain pulled a terrifying word from its recesses. Gasoline!

  I soundlessly screamed at my arms, my legs, to move, to run, to hide. My ankle shifted, and my foot bumped into the back of my other leg. I raised my knee, forcing my other knee to follow it. My arms were next, sliding up near my head. I rolled over onto my hands and knees and wobbled up, vomiting as the room spun and gasoline fumes sank into my lungs.

  Footsteps ran past me, and I managed to turn my head enough to see the figure unlock the front door. In a staggering crawl, I tried to follow, only to see the door slam and hear the lock click into place again as another stench hit my nose. Smoke!

  My grade-school training as school fire drill officer—I’d even had the sash to wear for a month—kicked in. Fear dragged my fuzzy brain back into a weak focus. Staying as low to the ground as I could, I crawled toward the back room. Once there, I fumbled for my phone, my hands trembling as my hazy vision sought the flashlight button. Light sliced through the room and through my brain, sending waves of dizzying pain through my head. I swallowed the bile threatening to come up again, breathing as deeply as I dared in a room rapidly filling with smoke.

  My hands dragged me farther into the room, and I turned and kicked the door closed, slowing the creep of smoke and fire into my hiding place. Crawling, I crossed the room toward the door. At least this time, I wouldn’t hit that stupid furniture again, whatever it was.

  At the back door, I slid my gaze along the rope that tied the back door closed. Rope. My brain struggled to find a way around it. Scissors. I was in an office-type setting in the back room. Desks. I pulled myself toward the closer of the three desks and yanked open drawer after drawer, screaming in frustration when no scissors appeared, falling to the floor when the scream induced a crippling pounding in my head. Who in their right mind didn’t keep scissors in their desk?