She took the steps slowly, knowing that once she was at the top, she’d be high enough to see over the hedge and into the parking lot. She could hear muffled voices as she approached, and she paused, inching closer until she could hear what was being said.
“I don’t care what’s at stake,” a voice snapped. “You can’t tell anyone. Ever.”
“But—” a male voice protested. She was certain it was Toby.
“No, no buts.” It was a woman’s voice. It sounded familiar, but Lindsey couldn’t place it.
“So, you’d rather go to jail than tell the truth, that we’re in lo—”
“Don’t say it!” the woman shrieked.
Lindsey paused with her hand on the rail. The voices were just beyond the hedge. She was so close. If she just leaned a little bit to her right—say, in an effort to use the banister to tie her shoe—she might be able to get a glimpse of whom Toby was speaking to.
She propped her foot up and yanked her shoelace loose, then she made a big show of tying it while she leaned down and glanced over the hedge into the small parking lot beyond. Sure enough, there was Toby talking to Kayla Manning. She ducked down, hoping that if she stayed still, she could listen to what was being said.
Her opportunity was lost when the door to the bakery opened and Dennis Greaves and Sam Holloway came out.
“Good morning, Lindsey!” Dennis called out as if she were fifty feet away instead of five.
“Morning, Lindsey,” Sam echoed.
“Hi, Dennis, Sam.” Lindsey finished tying her shoe and rose to her full height. She glanced to her right and noticed that the conversation on the other side of the hedge had stopped.
Kayla’s head snapped up in her direction, and her eyes narrowed into slits. Then she snatched a bag of groceries out of Toby’s hands and dropped them unceremoniously into the trunk of what appeared to be a rental car.
“Thanks for the help, Toby,” Kayla said. She reached up and ruffled his hair. “Such a darling boy. See you around.”
Toby frowned at her as if he had no idea what she was saying and was offended that she was treating him as if he were twelve instead of twenty. Lindsey knew the whole thing was for her benefit. Kayla must have suspected that she had overheard their conversation.
Kayla squeezed past Toby, climbed into her car, and sped off as if the long arm of the law was chasing her. Lindsey wondered whether perhaps it was.
Sam and Dennis squeezed past her on the steps with a wave good-bye, but Lindsey lingered, waiting for Toby. He stood forlornly in the parking lot, watching Kayla drive off, looking like he wanted to race after her, his expression a mix of frustration and infatuation.
Lindsey didn’t envy him that. When she had speculated about Toby and Kayla knowing each other, she hadn’t considered the possibility that they were romantically involved. From what she had overheard, it was clear they were in a relationship, and, oh boy, what a mess that was going to be when Emma found out. And she would find out, because if Toby and Kayla hadn’t told her already, Lindsey would.
Toby stared after Kayla’s car before turning back to the store. His back was rigid, and his posture was tense. In all the years Lindsey had seen him at the library during his study group, she’d never seen him upset. One of the things she liked most about him was his easy smile and can-do attitude. She wondered whether that was one of the things Kayla liked about him, too.
When Kayla’s car disappeared, Toby stomped around the hedge, heading back into the grocery store. When he moved around her, Lindsey reached out and touched his arm.
“Hey, Toby, are you all right?” she asked.
The young man stared at her with a blank expression, then he shook his head as if trying to get his head in the moment.
“Ms. Norris, um, hi,” he said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t see you there.”
“I figured,” she said. “You look as if you have something on your mind. Is there anything I can help you with?”
He swallowed, as if he was thinking about talking to her. Then he looked down and studied his shoes. “Nah, I’m good—really, totally good.”
Lindsey put on her library-director face. It was the look she gave her staff when she was waiting for them to tell her about something that was going to require paperwork. She had learned pretty early on when she became the director that the less she talked when engaging her staff, the more they spoke to fill in the silence. She noticed they shared more if she didn’t interrupt with her own opinion.
“If you’re sure,” she said.
Toby paused. He glanced at her face, and Lindsey made it as blank as possible.
“I just, you know, there’s this girl—well, no, she’s a woman,” he stammered.
Lindsey waited.
“You know, because I’m a man,” he said.
Since Lindsey was in her midthirties, twenty did not seem like a man to her, but she said nothing. She just nodded.
“Anyway, she’s got some stuff happening and she doesn’t want me involved, but I’m already involved, because I love her.”
His voice cracked when he said he loved her, and it was all Lindsey could do not to say, Aw. Instead, she nodded.
“The thing is—well, actually, this concerns you,” he said.
“It does?” Lindsey blinked. How did he know she was fishing for information? She felt a moment of panic.
“Yeah, because I lost my library card,” he said.
“Oh?” she said.
“And it looks like someone checked out some materials on my card,” he said. “So, I should probably report it.”
“Right, you don’t want to be liable for what someone else checked out.”
“All right, I’ll do that,” he said.
Lindsey looked at him. He was a conversational Ping-Pong ball. She needed to get him back on track.
“I’m not really following how your missing library card has anything to do with the woman you love not wanting to get you involved in something,” Lindsey said. She hoped he would explain. He didn’t.
“It’s complicated,” he said with a sigh.
“Toby, is there any chance the woman that you love has something to do with your card being missing?” she asked. “Did she borrow it or something?”
“No,” he said. “She’s not a reader.”
“Ah, well, do you know when or where you lost your card?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “The last time I used it was over a week ago, to check out some research books for my Japanese class, and I hadn’t thought about it until last night, when—”
He stopped talking and looked embarrassed. Clearly, he didn’t want to admit that the chief of police had been to see him. Toby was a bright young man. Lindsey knew he would figure out in a few seconds who had told Emma that the materials found in Kayla’s car had been checked out on his card. She decided to help him out.
“When Chief Plewicki stopped by your house,” she said.
“You know.” He looked excruciatingly uncomfortable.
Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the railing. “I’m the one who told her that the materials were checked out on your card. I hope you know I wasn’t betraying your patron confidentiality. She had a subpoena.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see where you had no choice.” His face paled, and he glanced at her from beneath his lashes. “The thing is, I didn’t check out any of those things, I didn’t have anything to do with the hit-and-run, and I definitely did not shoot the dead guy. I don’t even own a gun.”
“Did you lend your card to anyone?”
“No, no one,” he said. “I always keep it in the front pocket of my backpack, but when the chief stopped by last night and I went to look for it again, because I haven’t seen it in over a week, it wasn’t there.”
Lindsey decided it was time to push. She studied his f
ace when she asked, “Did you tell Chief Plewicki about your relationship with Kayla?”
“I’m not . . . we’re not . . .” he protested.
Lindsey shook her head, letting him know he needn’t bother. She knew.
He blew out a breath, ran a hand over his face, and dropped his chin to his chest.
“No, I didn’t tell the chief. No one knows about us,” he said. “I don’t care who knows, but Kayla freaked out. She said her reputation was bad enough without adding cradle robber to it. I really do love her. I don’t want to get her in trouble.”
“I can appreciate that, but you need to tell the chief about your relationship,” Lindsey said. “If you don’t, the chief is going to consider you a suspect.”
“But if I do, Chief Plewicki is going to consider Kayla a suspect,” he said. “When we found out my library card was used by the dead guy, she freaked. She thinks someone is trying to make it look like she hired a hit man to kill Ms. Huston or that she had me hire a hit man for her. Why would we do that? We’re in love.”
“There have been some cases in the media where an older woman has a relationship with a younger man and gets him to kill for her,” Lindsey said. “It’s a sad cliché, but it does happen.”
“But that’s crazy. Even though I love her, I would never do that!” Toby’s voice went high, and Lindsey glanced around to make certain no one could hear them. “Besides, she would never ask me to do something like that. Kayla is a warm and wonderful woman.”
“Even so, I’m sure you can see where people might read it wrong,” Lindsey said. “If you are Kayla’s alibi, then telling the truth is the best thing you can do for her.”
“She’ll never go for it.”
“Try to get her to agree,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know.”
“Thanks,” Toby said. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the store. “I’d better get back.”
“Sure.”
Toby held the door for her when Lindsey went into the bakery and ordered a poppy-seed lemon muffin with her extra-large high-octane coffee. Given the start to her day, she had a feeling she was going to need it.
She arrived at the library in time to help with setup. The book drop needed to be emptied, the computers turned on, and the phones taken off their nightly call forwarding. Lindsey stowed her purse and her food in her office and joined her morning staff as they hustled around the building.
She set up the reference desk, switching on the computer and the public terminals nearby. She went to help with circulation when she noticed that Ms. Cole wasn’t there. Ms. Cole was always there. She was like a commander in battle: the front desk was her front line, and she never abandoned her post. Ever.
“Stupid, ridiculous, idiotic waste of money, bucket of bolts . . . grrr.”
The muttering sounded familiar. Lindsey followed the grumbling until she found Ms. Cole holding a roll of receipt paper while glaring at the self-checkout machine.
“Problem, Ms. Cole?” she asked.
“I’ll say.” Ms. Cole gestured at the machine with the roll of paper. “It won’t print. I have loaded the paper three times, in every conceivable direction, and all I get is this.” She lifted up a strip of the paper that looked as if it had been neatly folded into accordion pleats.
“Paper jam,” Lindsey said. “Not helpful.”
“No, it isn’t,” Ms. Cole said. “We’re supposed to open in a matter of minutes, and I do not have time for this.”
Lindsey held out her hand. “I’ll take a look, and if I can’t get it working, I’ll call it in.”
Ms. Cole stared at her for a moment. “Thank you.”
She dropped the roll of paper into Lindsey’s hand and walked away. Given how much Ms. Cole hated technology and how resistant she had been to the dreaded self-checkout machine, Lindsey had to take this as a win, even if it meant she was the one wrestling with the stupid paper-receipt printer—and before coffee, too.
She decided to go with a full-on troubleshooting approach and shut the machine down for a few moments before starting it up and trying to get the printer portion of it to work. The machine was resistant. Much like Ms. Cole, she ended up with pleated paper and no receipt, and the printer made a lovely beeping noise like a truck backing up just to let her know there was an error. Lindsey could feel her temples compressing as a headache loomed. She refused to look over at Ms. Cole. She did not want to see any smirking.
She spooled in the paper and hit the feed button. It bunched up. She opened the latch and fed the spool of paper the other way. She hit the feed button again. Again it jammed.
Lindsey switched the machine off. First, she needed coffee. Second, she would call someone from the company to try to troubleshoot the machine over the phone. She made a quick OUT OF ORDER sign and slapped it on the machine. Then she headed back to her office.
She called out to Ms. Cole as she passed, “I’m still working on it.”
“Uh-huh,” Ms. Cole replied. Lindsey was certain there was a smirk in her tone.
When Lindsey entered her office, she found Robbie sitting there. She jumped and put her hand on her chest.
“Robbie, we’re not even open yet,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came in the back with Beth,” he said. “We have to talk.”
“About what?”
“The case,” he said. “We have an unidentified dead body—”
“We don’t,” she corrected him. She heard her phone ping in her purse and pulled it out of the side pocket. “The police do, and he’s no longer unidentified. They have his name. This is their investigation.”
She glanced down at the screen in case it was something related to work. The text message was from Susie McAllister at the genealogical library. Lindsey read it and then read it again. She had no idea what to make of this information, but she knew it was huge.
“Fine, you’re right. It’s police business, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help gather information,” he said. “We have a hit-and-run, an unsuccessful suffocation, not to mention the Norrgard twins barely got Theresa out of the line of fire last night. So, what did you say the dead man’s name was?”
“I didn’t. And don’t ask, because I’m not sharing,” Lindsey said.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because this is dangerous,” she said. “There are people driving through the middle of town, shooting guns. It’s incredible that only one person has been killed—tragic, but still remarkable.”
“See, it’s our duty to help the town in any way we can. I mean, who better to find out who is trying to kill Theresa Huston than us?”
“Your girlfriend, the chief of police,” Lindsey said.
“She’s hampered by the law,” he said. “Whilst we are free to question whoever we want whenever we want.”
Lindsey shook her head at him, knowing full well she was being a hypocrite, given her conversation with Toby. And with the text sitting in the palm of her hand writhing in her grasp like a living thing. How could she just ignore it? She couldn’t. She closed her office door and took her seat behind her desk. Robbie, as if sensing he had her full attention, put aside the newspaper he was holding and leaned forward.
“What if I told you I had looked into the disappearance of Larry Milstein’s first wife, Sarah?” she asked. “And that I think I may have found her.”
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Robbie tipped his head to the side. “She vanished fifteen years ago.”
“Yes, and there’s never been any trace of her, except—” Lindsey paused. She wasn’t sure what to make of the text she’d just received, but if anyone could charm the information out of Larry to confirm it, it was Robbie.
“Except? Come on, pet, out with it. You’re killing me,” he said.
“Okay, I had a librarian friend who works at a genealogy l
ibrary do a vital records check for Sarah Milstein, thinking maybe she would find something somewhere that would lead to her, since they never found a body. And it did. My friend found a divorce decree for Lawrence and Sarah Milstein in Virginia,” she said. She glanced down at the phone and enlarged the document that her friend had attached. “Here’s the thing: the petition for divorce was filed five years after she went missing.”
“How do the police not know this?” Robbie asked.
“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “It could be another Lawrence and Sarah Milstein; it could be because it was in Virginia; it could be because no one went looking for any documents.”
“Wasn’t Larry in Virginia at the time she went missing?”
“He has stores all down the Eastern Seaboard,” Lindsey said. “And I believe he has houses in several states, including Virginia and Florida.”
“So he could file for divorce from virtually anywhere,” Robbie said. “Especially if Sarah is alive and living in that state.”
They stared at each other.
“This means she never went missing,” Robbie said.
“But Larry wanted everyone to think she did,” she said. “Why? And for that matter, who was the woman I saw in the window? Was it Sarah? Is she still alive?”
“And skulking around the Milstein mansion? That makes no sense,” he said. “There’s a taint about Larry because his wife went missing—wouldn’t he want to clear that up?”
“You’d think,” she agreed. “You can ask him that over whiskey.”
“Oh, right, that won’t be awkward.”
“He likes you.”
“Enough to admit that he divorced his wife, who went missing fifteen years ago? And then what happened to her? Did she remarry? Did she become an expat on some Caribbean island?” Robbie asked. “I don’t think our mutual love of ridiculously expensive whiskey will get him to open up to me that much.”
“Probably, you’ll have the best luck after the whiskey,” she said.
Robbie tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. Lindsey knew him well enough to know he was trying to play out the scene in his mind. What he could say that would get Larry to talk to him about his wife, or ex-wife. He blew out a breath and tapped the arms of his chair with his fingers.
Hitting the Books Page 15