by Laurie Cass
“You mean like who killed him?” He grinned, and the old Mitchell was suddenly back in the room. “Everyone says it’s a toss-up.”
“Oh? The police have two suspects?”
“Nah. It’s a toss-up between half the guys in town who wanted to kill him because he was such a rotten builder and the other half, the ones who wanted to kill him because he was fooling around with their wives.”
I blinked. “He was?”
“All I know is what I hear,” Mitchell said. “And that’s what I hear. Say, I also hear your aunt wants to quit the boardinghouse business, but won’t because you want to hang on to it.”
“What? Where did you hear that?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Just heard it. Is it true? I mean, I don’t blame you, that place is pretty cool.”
This was the talk of the town? How on earth had the word gotten loose? Then I remembered that Aunt Frances and Otto and I had discussed it publicly at lunch that day in Angelique’s. A number of people could have overheard us and repeated the conversation. Or . . . was there something going on that I didn’t know about? “It’s my aunt’s,” I said a little stiffly. “And it’s hers to do with as she wants.”
He took the credit card I held out. “Just asking,” he said. “People wonder, you know?”
“Speaking of wondering,” I asked, “do you remember a car accident the Lacombes were in? It was a long time ago.”
“You bet.” Mitchell zipped the card through the reader. “Everybody thought the guy was going to die and Lacombe would go to jail for manslaughter or something, but that didn’t happen. The guy was from downstate, I remember that.”
“Do you remember the guy’s name?”
“Sure.” Mitchell handed back the card. “No, hang on,” he said, frowning. “I thought I did, but I guess I don’t.” He paused, looking at the ceiling, then shrugged. “Nope. It’s gone. Why do you want to know?”
“No real reason.” At least, not one I would tell him about. “Thanks for taking care of Sally’s present,” I said, and headed outside, only to see the floppy-hatted man who’d talked about the Lacombes at the Three Seasons on the sidewalk, using a cane this time instead of a walker. I gave him a small nod, he gave me an even smaller one in return, and when I’d walked half a block, I heard the distant jingle of the door bells from the toy store.
“Faber!” Mitchell called. “Simon Faber! The name of the guy in the car accident was Simon Faber.”
I half turned to wave my thanks, and saw the startled gaze of the hat man, who was just opening his car door. He glared at Mitchell, glared at me, then slid into his car and drove away.
“That was weird,” I murmured. Maybe hat man had been a friend of Faber’s. I toyed with the idea that hat man actually was Faber, but that seemed beyond unlikely. If Faber was back in town, word would surely have spread, especially with Dale Lacombe recently murdered.
I thought about this for a minute, then called Kristen. No answer, naturally. “Hey,” I said into her voice mail. “Give me a call, will you? I have a question about the other night when I was in the restaurant.”
As I walked up to the library it was Mitchell’s gossip about Dale Lacombe that stuck with me. Was it gossip? Was it truth? Was it both? I’d already learned more unpleasant things about Leese’s father than I was comfortable knowing, but this was a whole new level of discomfort. It was downright icky, and I didn’t know what to do.
Should I call Detective Inwood? Call Ash? If what Mitchell said was true, they probably already knew, but what if they didn’t? If it wasn’t true, I didn’t want to repeat gossipy rumors that could hurt Leese and her family. If it was true, and the sheriff’s office didn’t know, was I being remiss in not passing on the information? Was I not doing my duty as a citizen?
If I could have couched the question in a way that didn’t involve murder, I would have called my mother and asked her advice. But she’d ask too many questions and would end up freaking out, in a motherly sort of way. I didn’t want to put her through that, so the next best person to talk to was Aunt Frances. However, her mind was on Otto these days.
By the time I’d reached that point in my thoughts, I was in the library and at my office door. But instead of going inside, I turned and headed for the front desk.
“Hey, Donna,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”
The gray-haired woman looked away from the computer screen and smiled. “For you? A full minute and a half.”
“This isn’t a library thing,” I said.
“Even better.” She stood and came to the counter. “Is this a private or public conversation?”
I considered the question. “Quietly public.”
“So diplomatic. You could have a future in politics.”
Fake shuddering, I said, “Please don’t make me!”
Donna laughed. “What’s up?”
“A gossipy question I don’t want anyone to know I was asking.”
My coworker’s wise eyes studied me. “Have you considered the possibility that you shouldn’t ask it at all?”
“Absolutely.” I nodded vigorously. “It’s just that not knowing the answer could do more damage than knowing. And it’s not something I want to know, it’s more that I think I have to.”
“And at some point this conversation is going to start making sense?” Donna asked.
“It’s about Dale Lacombe,” I said. “And you know lots of things about people in this town that I don’t.”
She nodded. “Clarity is just around the corner. I can feel it.”
I smiled. “Don’t be so sure. From reliable sources, I know that Carmen and Dale had their disagreements and that they’d separated briefly more than once.”
“This is true,” Donna said. “Carmen and Dale are members of my church. We always knew when they were fighting because they’d sit in their regular spots next to each other, but they wouldn’t share a hymnal. And we always knew when they were separated because they’d drive two cars.”
“Right. Now what I recently heard, and this is from an unreliable source, is that Dale was having extramarital affairs.”
Donna’s gaze shifted away and past me. “Ah. If he was, that opens up a whole new list of murder suspects. Carmen, for one, if she wasn’t already on the list, but also the husbands or significant others of the women Dale was seeing.”
“Have you considered going into police work?” I asked.
“About as seriously as you considered becoming the new library director.” Her focus returned to my face. “I can’t give you an answer about Dale, because I don’t know. Sure, there were rumors, but they were vague and I always thought they were generated from spite.” She smiled wryly. “Dale wasn’t the kind of man who had a lot of friends. Kind of like some other people we know.”
I blinked, and then, as the tap tap of Jennifer’s high heels came into my hearing, I understood what she meant. I also understood that if I didn’t approach Jennifer soon, I’d come up with some task that needed to be accomplished that very day and never get around to discussing the Mitchell situation.
Our library director, today dressed in a silky gray jacket and skirt with four-inch heels and hair in a tight bun, crossed the lobby without a glance toward her employees. Donna shook her head. Softly, I said, “Mitchell Koyne says he’s not coming back to the library until Jennifer is gone.”
“He’s not the only one,” Donna muttered. “Half the staff feels like that.”
“Sure, but I think Mitchell’s serious.”
“So am I.”
I stood there, struck to silence by the quiet confidence in her tone. If the library had a mass exodus of employees, we would be in serious trouble. It was hard finding qualified people to work long hours for relatively low pay. Sure, working in a library, especially this library, was an incredibly rewarding job, but not everyone was willing.
The loud call of my cell phone’s ring tone cut into a plea to keep me abreast of any potential resignations. Somehow I’d forgotten to silence the phone when I’d walked into the building. I pulled my backpack around and fumbled through it, feeling my face burn hot with embarrassment. Me? I was the jerk who forgot to turn off her phone in a library? Me?
My fingers found the phone, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking to see who was calling. “Weak, I am so weak,” I murmured, pulling out the phone.
It was Leese.
Though I almost thumbed it to decline, something made me push the Accept button. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up with you on this gorgeous fall day?”
“Mia,” she said with a gasp. “This time it’s Mia.”
My stomach clutched itself into a tiny hard ball. Waiflike Mia, who’d endured anorexia and who knew what else as a teen. Mia, who’d just lost her father. Who had felt so guilty over his death that she’d turned herself in for his murder even though she’d been hundreds of miles away at the time. “Is she okay?” Please, I thought, let her brother be okay. Let Carmen be okay. Let all of them be okay.
“Physically, I think so.” Leese, big and strong Leese, had a voice full of tears. “Emotionally, I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“Where she works. They’re blaming her.” Leese huffed out the words one by one. “She’s responsible for the company’s computer servers. It’s all gone.”
“Gone? What’s gone?”
“She’d installed new servers last week. And they crashed. Crashed dead. All their data, all their proprietary software, all their designs and data. All of their everything. Along with all of their cloud storage. It’s just . . . gone.”
My mouth went dry. “Where is she now?”
“Here. At my house. In my spare bedroom, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.” Leese swallowed loudly. “They didn’t fire her, but she says it’s only a matter of time. She’s suspended. If this sticks, she’ll get a reputation and won’t be able find work like this ever again. Computers are the only thing she knows.”
I made soft noises of comfort as best I could, but all the while my brain was shrieking at me, saying one thing over and over again.
This was just like Brad’s suspension from the brewing company.
Just like. Was the Lacombe family having a horrible run of bad luck? Or was someone targeting them and picking them off, one by one?
Chapter 15
“There has to be a connection,” I said. My right hand held the phone to my ear while my left was making broad gestures that could have endangered innocent library patrons if I hadn’t removed myself to my office. “How could there not be?”
“Ms. Hamilton—”
I cut off Detective Inwood. “Yes, I know. You’re going to say that in law enforcement there’s nothing even close to a ‘has to be.’ You’re going to tell me that you need proof and that you’re exploring all avenues of investigation.”
There was a short silence. “It occurs to me,” the detective said, “that you’ve learned a tremendous amount about police techniques in the last year or two.”
“Yet it isn’t helping,” I said, and my tone was close to snippy. Back off, I told myself. Getting Inwood angry would not be helpful. After pulling in a short calming breath, I said, “It seems way outside the realm of coincidence that both Brad and Mia could have made significant mistakes at their respective workplaces.”
“Indeed it does,” Detective Inwood said.
“Really? You agree with me?”
“And since both of them,” he went on, “have suffered the recent loss of their father, a loss compounded by the tragic fact that he was murdered by person or persons unknown, it’s not unexpected that they would be distracted.”
“So you don’t agree with me,” I said flatly.
The detective’s sigh blew into my ear, which was more than a little weird. “Ms. Hamilton, I’m not certain what you’re asking me to agree with.”
And suddenly, neither was I. My first inclination, which had been to call Ash, had faded as soon as I started typing in the phone number for the sheriff’s office. Sure, we were still friends after the least emotional breakup ever, but it was early in the Friends Only phase and I didn’t want to interfere with how that was progressing. So I’d asked for Detective Inwood when what I should have done was hang up the phone and thought harder about what I was going to say.
Luckily, Inwood hadn’t paused for my response. “If the brewing company asks us to investigate a possible criminal act, we will. Likewise, if Ms. Lacombe’s place of work asks the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Office to investigate a criminal act, I’m certain they will do so. It’s not up to me to chase down theoretical crimes when I have enough to do working on the ones that are already in front of me!”
Another short silence filled the phone. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I know.” And I did. Ash had told me many times how hard Inwood worked and how badly they needed another experienced detective. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
The detective sighed again. “Ms. Hamilton, I’m the one who should apologize. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”
“And I shouldn’t have bothered you about something like this.”
“Please believe that we are working very hard to build a case for the arrest of Mr. Lacombe’s killer,” Detective Inwood said. “And please believe me when I say that I can’t say any more.”
I half smiled. “All avenues of investigation . . .”
He picked up the end of the phrase he’d told me many times. “Are being explored. Thank you for the call, Ms. Hamilton,” he said. “I do appreciate your willingness to assist our office.”
“Only maybe not quite so often?” I asked, but he’d already gone. “Just as well,” I muttered, spinning my chair around to sit. As I flopped down, once again I had the thought that I was missing something, that I wasn’t looking at something the right way, wasn’t considering the right angle, wasn’t remembering something critical, wasn’t remembering . . .
Jennifer.
Not fifteen minutes earlier I’d vowed to talk to her that very day. Before I could convince myself that I was too busy, I stood and headed up the stairs to her office. There was no time like the present.
All the way up the stairs, I tried to come up with a way to broach the subject. The knee-jerk “Did you know Mitchell Koyne won’t set foot in this place until you’re gone” didn’t work for a number of reasons. “I’m not sure I agree with you one hundred percent about the changes you’ve been making” was too vague and a little wishy-washy.
When I reached the second floor, a solid plan still hadn’t materialized. “Won’t be the first time,” I muttered to myself, and knocked on the doorjamb of Jennifer’s office.
She was sitting at her large desk, staring fixedly at the computer monitor. Either she was ignoring me or hadn’t heard my knock. I was trying to figure out which it was, when I suddenly noticed that though her redecorated office didn’t fit in Chilson, it did match something. It matched her.
Jennifer suddenly looked up. “Minnie,” she said. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
“I am?” The back of my neck stiffened even as I tried to relax. Because surely there was some reasonable reason that she wanted to see me. Maybe she wanted my opinion on the best place to eat. Or a favorite place to watch the sunset. Or—
“You’re here to present today’s update, correct?”
It took everything in me not to gape at her like a hooked fish. The daily update. I’d forgotten all about it. Completely and totally forgotten. But before I could panic and run, a stroke of genius burst into my brain, saving me from doom. “Since you haven’t given me parameters,” I said smoothly, “I thought we could talk about budgets this time. Have you had a chance to st
udy the revised bookmobile budget I sent last week?”
“Next on my list,” she said just as smoothly, leaving me to wonder if she was making up stuff as much as I was. She leaned forward, put her elbows on the desk, and rested her chin on her fingertips. “In the future, I’d prefer to get your daily reports late in the afternoon. That will give me time to make corrections if we’re going in the wrong direction.”
It seemed ridiculous to me. After all, how wrong a direction could a small library possibly go in one day? But I nodded and kept my thoughts—and facial expressions—to myself.
“So,” she said. “What else do you have to report?”
Right then and there, I decided to make my report full of the things I wanted her to know. If she wanted something different, she’d have to tell me. “Well,” I said cheerfully, “this morning . . .” And I launched into stories of the little things that filled our days. The sad things: the stoic bravery of an elderly woman who had asked for books about dealing with a spouse’s death. The inspirational things: a teenager who’d asked for advice on how to get accepted into law school. And the funny things: how Reva Shomin’s youngest had wanted to take home a stack of books taller than he was.
Jennifer’s fingertips started to tap together faster and faster, so I wrapped up my tales with a few facts about the numbers of books checked out and computer use. These were numbers I’d always studied every single day; I didn’t need an update duty to force me to look at data.
Finally, I said, “So the current checkout trends are down, but that’s still in line with averages over the past years. The only checkout numbers up are the bookmobile’s.”
“Interesting,” Jennifer said.
At least that’s what she said, but I wasn’t sure she actually meant it. I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that she was well aware of the numbers and was just testing my knowledge. Anger flared, but I did my best to tamp it down. Suspicion was not anything close to proof. Just ask Detective Inwood.
“There’s one other thing,” I said. “There have been a number of patrons who have told me they aren’t interested in visiting the library any longer. I wondered if you might have some opinions about that.”