Swan Song

by Judith K Ivie

  The librarian’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Well, yes, I guess that’s right. He’s always been popular with our mystery buffs, so we make it a point to keep a number of copies of each of his titles on the shelves.” She chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I believe his books have become even more popular since his death than they were before, but why on earth would you need to travel all the way up here to get hold of a copy? His books must be in every library in America. Are you looking for a particularly early example of his work perhaps?”

  May looked at a loss for words, and Margo jumped in to fill the pause. “It’s kind of a long story,” she said and stopped, uncertain of whether to go on. I gave my head a small shake.

  “It’s the scavenger hunt from hell,” I fabricated on the spot. “Our women’s club decided to include one of his most popular titles on the list of items to find for a huge fundraising event, and all of the libraries around Wethersfield are fresh out. We figured we’d have better luck if we went farther afield.”

  “So here we are,” May finished brightly. “Can you point us in the right direction?”

  Marian nodded in understanding. “Ohhhh, now I get it,” she said, standing up and massaging the small of her back. I knew the feeling. “That explains why another woman from out of state was here looking for Trague’s books yesterday. I hope she left you a copy of the one you’re looking for.” She pointed to a nearby staircase. “The fiction stacks are up those stairs. Mysteries are in their own section, all shelved alphabetically by author.”

  The three of us goggled at her. May was the first to find her tongue. “Umm, the woman who came here yesterday. She didn’t happen to have a pink streak in her hair, did she?”

  Marian looked startled. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact she did. I remember thinking at the time that she was a little, shall we say, mature to be sporting that stripe. So she’s a competitor in this scavenger hunt, is she? Wow, you ladies are out for blood.” She laughed merrily.

  The three of us exchanged meaningful looks. “I surely hope not,” Margo mumbled and turned toward the stairs.

  “Well, good luck to you,” Marian said, heading back to her uncomfortable computer chair. “Let me know if you find what you’re looking for. I’m very curious about this whole thing now.”

  “You’re not the only one,” I assured her. With that, we trudged up the wide staircase to the fiction stacks.

  After the bustle on the main floor, the upper level was almost eerily quiet. Because of that—as well as the clandestine nature of our errand—we instinctively communicated in whispers. It didn’t take long to locate the mysteries section against the rear wall. Predictably, as with every other volume I’ve sought over the years in libraries and bookstores, Trague’s titles were neatly arranged on the very bottom shelf of the next-to-last section.

  “Okay, you nubile young things. Whose knees are flexible enough for this occasion?” May teased. “Since I’m past the age of seventy, I claim ineligibility for serious floor crawling. I might get down there, but it would take both of you to haul me to my feet.”

  “I’m not yet seventy,” I protested, “but I’d probably need a derrick to get me up.”

  Margo sighed. “Kate got us into the staff bathroom, so I guess I should volunteer for this duty.” Hanging onto the shelving, careful not to break a carefully manicured nail, she lowered herself gingerly to her knees and began to crawl along on all fours. “You’d think they’d come up with a better system than this,” she groused, craning her neck to peer at the underside of the shelf directly over Trague’s titles. “Do you have any idea what this is doin’ to my pantyhose?”

  “Why would you wear pantyhose under trousers?” I wanted to know.

  “Tummy flattener,” she replied, patting her already flawless abdomen.

  “You should try Spanx,” I told her. “Much cooler, and they don’t run.”

  May looked worried. “I know Lizzie’s letter implied that she’d secured the flash drive to the bottom of the shelf over W.Z.B.’s books, but I can’t picture her creeping around the floor at her age. She was even older than I am, if that’s possible, and not in good health. How in blazes could she have made the moves necessary to do that?”

  Margo stopped crawling and began pulling books off the bottom shelf. When all of Trague’s titles had been removed, she rolled over onto her back and stuck her head all the way into the opening to have a good look around. I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. My fastidious friend looked for all the world like a very well-dressed turtle stuck on its back.

  “Whoever is makin’ that extremely rude noise had better knock it off,” Margo growled. She ran her hands over the underside of the second shelf to be sure she wasn’t missing something in the dimness and then sneezed. “Okay, that’s it,” she announced, pulling her head out of the hole and attempting to roll back over onto her knees. “There is nothin’ whatsoever under this shelf except one dead spider and a whole lot of dust.” Despite her obvious disappointment, May laughed, too, and we both reached to help her. With May hauling on one arm and me on the other, we managed to get Margo into a sitting position and then onto her feet.

  “You are absolutely the most ungrateful people I have ever known,” she huffed, taking a few ineffectual swipes at her backside. “Next time you take me on a wild goose chase like this one, Auntie May, you can be the one stuck on your back on the floor, and I swear I will not lift one finger to help you. Kate, swat some of this dirt off my fabulous derriere.”

  I obliged, still giggling, but my efforts weren’t entirely successful. Margo finally waved me away, and we bent down to shove Trague’s titles back onto the shelf as best we could. Before replacing each volume, we checked the front and back pages and cover flaps for any biographical information they might hold. We might as well have been chasing a phantom. Maybe we were, come to think of it.

  “So much for our terrific lead.” May wrapped her arms around herself and threw herself into an overstuffed armchair, conveniently located in front of a window. “What do we do now? I’m brutally disappointed, and I haven’t an idea left in my head.”

  “I’m not ready to say your lead was a bad one,” I said slowly but paused before continuing. Disappointed was one thing, but mad-as-hell would be worse, and I was reluctant to be the one who sent May to that particular destination.

  Margo frowned at me. “I think I know where you’re goin’ with this, Sugar.”

  We both looked at May, trying to assess how far to take our theory. May shrugged. “Oh, don’t look so tragic. I’m not so gaga yet that I can’t put one and one together and come up with two. From what Marian the librarian said, Renata Parsons was in this very building yesterday. As Trague’s former agent, she would know the ordering predilections of libraries in his locale better than most. If she read Lizzie’s letter, she undoubtedly had the same idea we had. For all we know, she may have been checking libraries all over this part of Massachusetts for the last week and just got to this one before we did.”

  “If this really was the right one, she may have found what she was looking for,” I finished up, “which puts us here a day too late.”

  Margo crossed to where May was sitting and gave her aunt’s shoulder a pat. Her eyes lifted to the window behind May’s chair. “Uh oh. That’s not the only thing we’re too late doin’,” she moaned. “Take a look.”

  I hurried over to the window, and May twisted in her seat. It was a shocking sight. The isolated flurries we had experienced as we crossed the parking lot less than an hour earlier had morphed into a blinding wall of snow-blown wind. Suddenly, we became aware of the overwhelming quiet of the building. The only sounds were the keening wind and the frozen snow ticking against the window pane. Except for Margo’s Volvo, which already had several inches of snow blanketing it, and one other car, the parking lot was virtually empty. As one woman, we grabbed our handbags and rushed toward the stairs, bumping into each other in our haste. As we began our descent, an agitated Marian loo
ked up from the bottom of the flight, clearly nonplussed to find us still in the building. Her hand was on the light switch.

  “Oh, dear! We’ve been so rushed down here that I entirely forgot you ladies were upstairs. We closed the front doors half an hour ago. I was just turning out the lights and heading out myself. I live in the apartment building on the other side of the parking lot. The storm moved in a lot earlier than they thought it would this morning, and with that wind, I’m surprised we haven’t lost power already. Are you really going to try to drive back to Connecticut in this?”

  Before we could answer her, two things happened: First, the power went out, plunging us into total darkness. Then Margo missed her footing on the next-to-last step and fell heavily to the floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For a shocked moment the only sounds we heard were the relentless howling of the wind outside the first floor windows and the tick, tick, tick of a beautiful grandfather clock against the wall at the foot of the staircase. Then everyone spoke at once.

  “Margo honey, are you all right?” Auntie May wailed, hanging onto the railing. “I’m afraid if I move, I’ll step on you.”

  “I’ll go get a flashlight from the main desk,” Marian offered. “We keep one in there at all times for weather emergencies.” She backed off slowly into the main room, sliding her feet along the carpeting. “Don’t worry, I have cat’s eyes. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  I sat down on the stairs and bumped carefully to the bottom, where I felt around for Margo. My hand fell on a leg, and I slid it up to her hip, then her waist. “Margo? Talk to me.”

  “I’ll do more than talk to you if that hand goes any higher, Sugar,” she announced in a completely normal Margo voice. “The least you could do is buy me dinner first.”

  She attempted to drag herself into a sitting position and groaned, holding her left ankle in both hands. Marian’s flashlight wavered across the floor as she returned and illuminated the sorry scene as best she could.

  “Sorry. Our budget doesn’t run to an emergency generator,” she apologized. “A few torches and a supply of batteries is about as good as it gets. I guess it’s too much to hope that you didn’t hurt yourself?”

  “It’s bad karma, that’s what it is. No sooner did I threaten to leave Auntie May stranded on her back like a turtle than I twisted an ankle. What goes around, comes around, even if it’s just a bad joke.”

  “I’m not so sure you were joking,” May told her. “I’ll probably have nightmares about wriggling on my back all alone in an abandoned warehouse like in one of those silly horror movies. Besides, it’s your turn. I twisted my ankle last year when that drunk pushed me into the lamppost in my front yard, remember?”

  “Now there was a night to remember,” Margo reflected. “I don’t think I can top that, do you?”

  “Do you think we could focus here?” I pleaded. “Margo, if we help you, can you hop to a chair while we figure this out?”

  In response, Margo eased off the one stylish pump that remained on her foot. May held the flashlight up high while Marian and I got Margo’s arms over our shoulders and hauled her upright. With her between us, hopping on one foot, we moved to the nearest comfortable reading chair, then propped her injured ankle on a computer chair we pulled up and padded with May’s cardigan sweater.

  “I’d suggest you wrap that ankle as tightly as you can to keep the swelling down as much as possible. I’ll pop into the staff kitchen and get some ice into a plastic bag—oh, and see if I can find another flashlight or two,” Marian promised and scurried off again, leaving us in the dark once more.

  Margo looked after her gratefully. “It’s a good thing she’s here with us. Reference librarians know absolutely everything. Oh, and ouch, by the way.”

  “Glad you got that out of your system,” I smiled at her. “Some ice will help. I sprained an ankle myself a few years ago, and it’s mostly just annoying. The worst part is …”

  “ … having black toes,” May finished without hesitation, and I nodded my agreement. “It’s very disconcerting, and they last for simply weeks.”

  Margo shuddered. “You are not helpin’.”

  Just when we were beginning to wonder if Marian had run into difficulty, we saw the beam of her flashlight once again bobbling toward us. “Sorry,” she called. “It’s hard to hold a flashlight and a tray at the same time.”

  I hurried to help her. “Whew! Thanks,” she said as I relieved her of the tray on which rested a plastic bag of ice cubes and two additional flashlights plus a cell phone. I applied the ice to Margo’s puffy ankle and wrapped it up as tightly as I could with my sweater sleeves. Marian handed May and me a flashlight apiece and plopped down on the bottom step of the staircase after placing Margo’s discarded shoes neatly side by side.

  “I called emergency services and explained what was going on here, but I’m afraid we have a rather low priority at the moment. Apparently, all hell has broken loose out there. Schools had planned to let out early, but they were still in session when the storm sneaked up on Hubbard, so that’s a major mess and a half. A few parents made it through, but mostly, anyone with a four-wheel-drive vehicle has been dragooned into ferrying kids home. Some are spending the night right where they are, can you imagine?” She shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t recall that ever happening before. And then, of course, there are the traffic accidents and stranded drivers and a woman who went into early labor over on East Elm Street. All things considered, the dispatcher said we should just hunker down and wait for help, so I guess we’re on our own for a while.”

  I consulted silently with my friends before speaking. “I’m sure they’ll do the best they can. We still have residual heat and phone service. We for sure know where the bathroom is, and we can always call for some Chinese take-out,” I said, attempting a small joke. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. You’d best wrap yourself up and get across that parking lot to your apartment while you still can, Marian.”

  To her credit, she looked horrified. “Goodness, I wouldn’t dream of leaving you here in the dark to fend for yourselves! I know this place like the back of my hand, even in the dark. You don’t, and Margo here isn’t exactly mobile. We can’t take the chance of any more accidents. My neighbor will feed my cat. I’ve already telephoned her.”

  Dismay churned my stomach as I thought of poor Gracie, alone and unfed. I made a mental note to telephone my next-door neighbor to check in on her and fill her crunchies bowl. We knew Rhett Butler and Sassy would be well tended by Margo’s husband John.

  “It’s awfully kind of you to volunteer for this duty, especially when I’m sure you’d rather be tucked up snugly in your home.” May voiced the sentiments of all three of us.

  “Pish, tosh,” Marian replied with good humor. “There won’t be any electricity in my apartment either, so it’s not as if I could cook or even watch television. It’ll be much more fun to hang out here with gals until the power comes back on.” She stood up briskly. “Okay, let’s get organized.”

  Within half an hour, we had relocated Margo to a low, comfortable sofa in the children’s room (“So much cozier down here!”), located pillows and blankets in the cabinets (“We always have kids nodding off in the middle of story hour.”), and foraged in the staff kitchen for edibles. (“We’re in luck! Ramona Billingsley’s baby shower was yesterday, so the refrigerator is still full of leftovers.”) With field marshal efficiency, Marian had even located a thermos of still warm coffee, with which we washed down a good deal of Mrs. Billingsley’s largesse. A battery-operated radio from the library director’s office kept us updated on the storm’s progress, but we were careful not to leave it on too long and used only one flashlight at a time for necessary trips to the bathroom.

  As the afternoon waned, we took turns using the library’s land line to let people know where we were and check up on Duane and Becky. Isabelle assured us that they were still safely at the Hilton, “although I’m almost certain they’ll have to spend the
night there. Most of the funeral directors at the convention got caught short. The storm hit much sooner than expected, and driving is impossible. At least if we lose power, the hotel has its own emergency generators, but most of the temporary catering staff will be camping out in the main ballroom.”

  “Nothing like an impromptu overnight with a couple of hundred morticians to foster some candid conversation,” May mused. “They’re young. They’ll be fine. It will be an adventure, and maybe they’ll have a chance to get the inside scoop on what really happened at the hotel last Thursday night. How about you, Isabelle? Did you have much trouble getting home?”

  Home to Isabelle was the Vista View retirement community, where she had a comfortable two-bedroom apartment and on-site meal service, an arrangement I very much envied from time to time. As the community’s former business manager, she was treated with much deference. She assured May that after buttoning up the Law Barn, she had high-tailed it to Vista View, where she was snugly ensconced.

  We completed our calls, Margo making hers on her cell phone from her nest on the children’s room sofa, and one by one, we rejoined her. While fortunate to have phone service, we still did not have electricity, which meant the furnace in the building’s basement couldn’t function. With each passing hour, the interior temperature dropped another degree or two, and we huddled together under our coats and the few blankets Marian had produced. As evening fell, and the novelty of the situation wore off, we grew grumpy. We sat in the dark and attempted to keep up a desultory conversation. Partly to pass the time and partly to show Marian our appreciation of her kindness, we gave her the bare facts of the situation with W.Z.B. Trague and his missing manuscript. The gloom surrounding us made us jumpy, and we were certain that every little creak and groan of the old building indicated impending disaster.