Read It and Weep (A Library Lover's Mystery)

by Jenn McKinlay

“What?” Lindsey looked up from her chowder.

  “You’ve got that look in your eye,” she said.

  “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re going to go stick your nose where it does not belong.”

  “I am not,” she protested. “I am merely going to visit Kitty and see what she can tell me about the tattoo.”

  “She won’t talk to you,” Beth said.

  “How will I know until I try?”

  Lindsey paused to dunk another clam fritter into her chowder.

  “Why don’t you let me go and talk to her?” Beth asked.

  Lindsey paused with the dripping fritter halfway to her mouth. “Really?”

  “I think Kitty likes me,” Beth said. “At least, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t hate me.”

  “I don’t know, I sort of got the feeling that she hated everyone,” Lindsey said.

  “Some more than others,” Beth said, giving her a significant look. “If you could cover the children’s desk this afternoon, I could pop over there and see what I can find out.”

  “Ms. Cole would have a field day if you took off in the middle of a workday,” Lindsey said. “She’ll report us both to human resources.”

  Beth frowned and said, “I don’t know. I have to say that since the play has been under way, the lemon hasn’t been quite as puckered as usual.”

  Lindsey thought back to the night the lights went out in the theater, the night that Robbie was stabbed. When Ian had fixed the breaker, Ms. Cole and Milton had been holding hands. At the time Lindsey had thought it was just to brace each other in the dark, but now she wondered.

  “All right, I can watch the children’s desk,” she said. “How are you going to get her to talk to you?”

  “I can be very persuasive,” Beth said.

  “You’re going to bug her and keep bugging her until she cracks,” Lindsey said.

  “Yeah, and I thought I’d bring her some chocolate,” Beth said.

  “Belly bribery. I like it,” Lindsey said.

  • • •

  Lindsey sat at the children’s desk while Beth ducked out to go visit Kitty. In a way, Lindsey felt as if she were sending Beth into the lion pit with an aluminum sword, but then again, Beth managed thirty hyper toddlers in her story times. Surely she could handle one surly middle-aged woman.

  “I want the pumpkin book,” a little voice said from behind her.

  Lindsey swiveled in her chair to see a little girl wearing a frilly, light-blue dress and sparkly pink shoes standing right behind her. The girl’s hair looked windblown, and her red sweater was hanging off of one shoulder. She had a spray of freckles running across her nose, round cheeks and enormous blue eyes. She looked to be about five years old.

  “Well, hello,” Lindsey said. “What’s your name?”

  “Lila,” the girl said. She did not smile. “And I want the pumpkin book.”

  “Well, Lila, I’m Ms. Norris.”

  The girl stared at her, unblinking. Lindsey could tell that this child really didn’t give a hoot what her name was. She just wanted her book. Okay, then.

  “Do you remember the name of the pumpkin book?” she asked.

  “No. It had a big pumpkin on it,” Lila said.

  Lindsey glanced at the autumn display Beth had put up in the corner. The display unit was three shelves; she had decorated it with corn stalks and autumn leaf garlands, and it featured books about leaves changing colors, pumpkin patches and harvests.

  “Did you see it on those shelves?” Lindsey asked. “We have lots of books about pumpkins.”

  “No, not there.” Lila shook her head and made an annoyed face that left Lindsey in no doubt that Lila found her lacking in the smarts department.

  “I don’t suppose you know who wrote it?” Lindsey asked.

  Lila just stared at her.

  “Do you remember the story?” Lindsey asked. “If you tell me about it, maybe we can find it that way.”

  “It had a pumpkin and horses on it,” Lila said.

  “Oh. Was it about a farm?”

  Lila glanced at the ceiling as if searching for patience.

  “No,” she said. Her blue eyes went back to staring at Lindsey as if trying to bend her to her will.

  “Okay,” Lindsey said. She had to take a deep breath and blow it out slowly so as to keep from using an impatient tone with the kid. “Let’s try again. What do you remember about the story in the book?”

  “The pumpkin,” Lila said.

  Lindsey bent forward in her chair until her face was just inches from Lila’s, then she returned the girl’s stare with equal intensity. They were going to have a mind meld and she was going to find this kid’s book if it was the last thing she did.

  “What happened to the pumpkin?” Lindsey asked.

  “It turns into a carriage that’s pulled by the horses,” Lila said.

  Lindsey sat back and blinked. “That sounds like Cinderella. Was there a princess in this book with a glass shoe?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Lila blinked and the intense stare ended.

  “So, it’s Cinderella that you’re looking for?” Lindsey asked.

  “No, I like the fairy godmother,” Lila said. “I’m going to be one when I grow up, and I’ll be able to turn pumpkins into carriages and mice into horses. It’s going to be cool.”

  “So, that whole princess thing doesn’t really work for you?” Lindsey asked. She turned to her computer and opened up the online catalog. She put in Cinderella and brought up the list of all of the versions of the fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers that the library owned.

  “No way,” Lila said. “It’s much better to be magical.”

  “I agree.” Lindsey looked at her and smiled.

  With the intensity of her stare and the strength of her will, Lila certainly possessed her own brand of magic. Lindsey moved so that Lila could see the list on the monitor, each title included a thumbnail picture of the cover and she hoped Lila could pick out the one she wanted.

  “Do any of these look like the book you’re looking for?” she asked.

  Lila pointed to one about halfway down the page. It was an older, Wonder Books version of the classic fairy tale illustrated by Ruth Ives and it was listed as checked in.

  “Come with me,” Lindsey said. “It should be over here.”

  Together they went into the fairy tale section. It was a bit lesser used than the picture books and so the books held up a bit longer. Sure enough, there sat the classic version of the story. Lindsey handed it to Lila and she hugged it to her chest.

  “Oh, thank you,” Lila breathed. “I’m going to show my mom.”

  She took off to the baby section of the room where they had a thick rubber mat on the floor and shelves of board books for the under-two set. Lindsey watched while she flopped down next to her mother and began to flip through the book. The mother glanced from Lila to Lindsey and gave her a warm smile. Lindsey headed back to the desk, fully understanding why Beth loved being a children’s librarian so much. For children, books were still magical.

  When she returned to her desk, she opened up her e-mail and began reading. She had several e-mails from the personnel department about the amount of hours her part-time staff could work per week. Part-time staff was not paid for vacation time, so Lindsey had hoped to bank those hours and use them to staff the library during its annual book sale.

  The dragon lady who ran personnel, however, did not, as she put it, want her to “hoard” hours. It made Lindsey clench her teeth, so she forwarded the e-mail to the mayor’s assistant, Herb Gunderson, hoping he could explain to the dragon that the hours still belonged to Lindsey. Herb was higher up than Lindsey, and the dragon was less likely to argue with Herb.

  She had just hit send when she felt the floor shake. Earthquakes very rarely happened in
Connecticut, so she glanced at the window to see if they were having a sudden turn in the weather.

  The colorful leaves outside moved quietly in the gentle breeze and the sky that was visible was a crisp, cool blue that looked like it could be scooped and served on an ice cream cone. She glanced back at the library and that’s when she saw her coming. Kitty Vine was stomping toward her, looking like she wanted to do some damage. Uh-oh.

  21

  “How dare you!” Kitty seethed. “How dare you send one of your minions to come and question me!”

  Lindsey glanced over Kitty’s shoulder and saw Beth hurrying toward her, waving her arms as if to indicate that Lindsey should exit through the nearest available door.

  Lindsey looked back at Kitty and kept her expression bland. “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “That”—Kitty paused, turned and pointed at Beth—“showed up at my house just now, full of all sorts of questions about Robbie. Now, as far as I know, Robbie barely knew her name, so why would she be interested in him? But then I remembered that you two are besties, aren’t you?”

  Lindsey didn’t answer but just kept staring at her. Kitty looked even more angry. Maybe Lila was onto something with the penetrating stare.

  “This really isn’t the place for this conversation, is it?” Lindsey asked.

  “Oh, I think it’s perfect!” Kitty snapped. “Since you’re acting like a child and we’re in the children’s area. Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense.”

  Lindsey felt a tug on her sleeve, and she turned to find Lila there. Lila motioned her close and Lindsey leaned over so Lila could whisper in her ear.

  “Do you want me to turn her into a pumpkin for you?” she asked. “I’ve been practicing on my baby brother.”

  Lindsey laughed. She put her arm around the girl and said, “I really appreciate the offer, but I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble. Probably, you shouldn’t try to turn your brother into a pumpkin, either.”

  “Stick to the dog?” Lila asked.

  “Or maybe a chair,” Lindsey suggested.

  Lila gave her a nod of understanding and went back to her mother.

  “Kitty, if you want to talk, and by that I mean talk and not yell at me, we can go to my office,” Lindsey said.

  “Fine.” Kitty glared.

  Lindsey flashed back to the first day she’d met Robbie, when he’d said that when a woman says she’s fine, she is anything but. She wondered if he’d learned that from Kitty.

  “Beth, do you mind taking the desk?”

  “No, happy to,” Beth said. She looked immensely grateful to sit in her familiar chair in her natural habitat.

  “Follow me, please,” Lindsey said as she led the way to her office.

  They passed the circulation desk, where Ms. Cole was checking in a cart of books from the book drop. She glanced at Kitty with a disapproving look, and Lindsey felt oddly relieved that Ms. Cole disliked someone more than her for a change.

  “Can I get you anything?” Lindsey asked as they went into her office. “Water? Coffee?”

  Kitty gave her a suspicious look. “No, thank you. After Robbie . . . well, I swore I’d never drink anything that I didn’t know the point of origin for.”

  “Understandable,” Lindsey said. “I do have sealed bottles of plain water.”

  “Well, all right,” Kitty said grudgingly.

  Lindsey went into the staff room and took two bottles out of her personal stash from the large refrigerator in the corner. She returned to find Kitty examining the pictures on the shelf behind her desk.

  “Cute guy,” Kitty said. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  Lindsey glanced at the frames. There were only two, one of her parents and one of her brother.

  “Brother, actually,” she said. “Jack.”

  “So, you’re single?” Kitty asked. “I figured, but it’s good to have it confirmed.”

  Lindsey glanced down at her desk. She and Sully hadn’t been going together long enough to make the framed photo shelf. The thought depressed her.

  She sat down and Kitty took the seat opposite her desk.

  Kitty examined her water bottle as if trying to determine whether or not it had been tampered with.

  “I would not poison you,” Lindsey said. “I promise.”

  Kitty met her gaze and seemed to make up her mind. She uncapped the bottle and took a long sip.

  “So, why did you send the little cutie pie over to my house instead of coming yourself?” Kitty asked.

  “Beth,” Lindsey emphasized her name, “wanted to go. She made the argument that you might talk more freely with her than with me.”

  “Why would I talk to her or you?” Kitty asked. “Robbie’s past is no one’s business. It needs to stay in the past.”

  “So you knew he had a son?” Lindsey asked.

  “He had a child,” Kitty said. “It was the result of a crazy love affair in his youth.”

  “Robbie was almost twenty,” Lindsey said. “The child would be eighteen in a matter of weeks.”

  “How do you know that?” Kitty was clutching the water bottle in her hands so tight that her knuckles were turning white.

  “The sun tattoo on his arm has the child’s birth date in it,” Lindsey said. “Sun meaning a son.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kitty scoffed. It sounded forced. “The child was given up for adoption as soon as it was born. He never even laid eyes on it. He doesn’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “But there was a child born on that day,” Lindsey pressed.

  “No. I don’t know,” Kitty said. “You’d have to contact the mother. Oh, that’s right: you can’t, because no one knows who she is.”

  “Susan Dalton,” Lindsey said.

  Kitty’s jaw dropped open.

  “Really not that hard to figure out if you do some research,” Lindsey said. “She was an American soap opera star and Robbie’s girlfriend for six months. The child was born about five months after their breakup.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s the mother,” Kitty protested. “It could be that she found out he’d fathered a child with someone else and dumped him.”

  “Yeah, but I looked up the story line of her soap opera and her character in particular. Funny how her character was written as being pregnant at the same time the mother of Robbie’s child would have been, don’t you think?”

  “I think librarians have too much time on their hands,” Kitty snapped.

  “No, we just have some very formidable research skills,” Lindsey said. “Either way, it shouldn’t be that hard to prove that she was pregnant in real life.”

  Lindsey was bluffing. She didn’t think there was any way she could hunt down the former soap star and find out if she’d given birth almost eighteen years ago, but if she convinced Kitty that she could, well, it might be all the leverage she needed.

  “So what?” Kitty asked. “Why do you even care? Were you that taken with Robbie that you now have to console yourself by scouring his past? I mean, what relevance does it have?”

  Lindsey glanced down at the desktop. How much did she want to tell Kitty? That Robbie’s child was alive and well and quite possibly here in Briar Creek? How would Kitty react to that information? Then again, did she already know?

  “I think his child is here,” Lindsey said. “In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “What?” Kitty asked. But her voice didn’t sound as shocked as it should have.

  “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kitty insisted.

  “Dylan,” Lindsey said.

  Her eyes never left Kitty’s face, but Kitty broke eye contact and glanced at anything but Lindsey.

  “Dylan Peet is his son, isn’t he?” Lindsey persisted. “Did Robbie kno
w?”

  “You’re crazy!” Kitty said as she shot up from her chair. “There is no child. The actress being pregnant on her soap opera was just a story line. In fact, probably that’s why people thought Robbie fathered her child, because they were dating and she was portraying a pregnancy on the show. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “And you called me crazy?” Lindsey asked. “That’s mental.”

  “You need to leave this alone!” Kitty said.

  “Why?” Lindsey asked. “Are you afraid that your cut of Robbie’s estate will be taken away from you if it’s discovered that he has a child?”

  Kitty glared at her.

  “Oh, my god, that’s it, isn’t it,” Lindsey said. “You’re afraid you’re going to lose your inheritance if it becomes known that Robbie has a child.”

  “Wrong.” Kitty slammed her water bottle down on the desk. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I know exactly what his will states, and his estate is not going to me. The bulk of his fortune was left to someone else.”

  Lindsey opened her mouth to ask who, but Kitty held up her hand, stopping her.

  “I will not tell you,” Kitty said. “You’ll just have to wait to find out with everyone else when the estate is settled, but rest assured I am not the beneficiary.”

  “Is it his child?” Lindsey asked. Kitty’s gaze slid away from hers, and Lindsey knew her guess was correct. “You have to tell.”

  “No, I don’t,” Kitty said.

  “But don’t you see?” Lindsey protested. “Who has the most to gain from Robbie’s death? If it’s not you, then—”

  “But Dylan didn’t know—” Kitty clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Didn’t know what?” Lindsey asked. “Come on, Kitty, you’ve come this far.”

  “No!” Kitty raged. “Look, I promised Robbie I wouldn’t say anything and now that he’s gone . . .”

  Her voice broke as if she didn’t have the strength to keep going and for the first time, Lindsey saw the grief that Kitty was feeling at the death of her husband and business partner. Lindsey felt sorry for her, truly she did, but Robbie had been murdered, which meant his killer was out there and Kitty couldn’t keep his secrets anymore.