Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  I turned on the ginger jar lamp, transforming my office into a cozy den with a puddle of light on the desk and Rodney, hunger satisfied, purring at my side. Whoever had put an armchair in here had been a genius. I dialed Toni’s number, taking care to block mine.

  “Josie! I’m so glad you called.”

  I sat straighter. It was more than sisterly love that had prompted the urgency in this greeting. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to alarm you.”

  I knew that tone of voice. It was the voice physicians used to tell patients about the results of medical tests that hadn’t come out well. I’d heard it last before Grandma died. The doctor had joined us in the waiting room with a puzzled look but a matter-of-fact tone. “Mrs. Ainsley is very healthy on many levels. At her request, we tested her pancreas. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” When she’d died, my childhood had gone with her.

  “Tell me, Toni,” I begged my sister now on the phone.

  “Are you sure you’re safe, I mean, wherever you are?”

  I clutched the heavy handset. “I’m fine.” Outside, the fir trees whooshed in a wind that seemed to have come from out of nowhere. Lyndon had said a storm might be blowing in. “Spit it out.”

  “Someone broke into your apartment today.”

  “What?” At my exclamation, Rodney leapt from my lap to the desk and lowered to his haunches.

  “Your landlord called. Remember, I’m your emergency contact. She said one of your neighbors reported that your door was ajar. She checked it out, and the lock had been broken. She called you, then called me when you didn’t answer.”

  My breath froze in my lungs. Just what I’d feared. Whatever had happened to Anton could have happened to me.

  I pictured my apartment’s beige couch, the television, and buff cotton rug over the apartment’s wall-to-wall Berber carpet. I’d never before thought of it as bland, but now it struck me how devoid of character it was. Basically, my apartment’s only life came from the bookshelves lining the walls.

  The intruder couldn’t have found anything at my apartment that would lead them to me. Or did they?

  “I left my phone at home on the counter, charging,” I said suddenly. I’d thought that was smart. No one could track me by my phone’s GPS, but I was now aware of what it meant. If I were in New York, as I’d told them at work, or anywhere, really, I would have taken my phone with me. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce I didn’t want to be found.

  “So, they know,” I said.

  We both let that sink in.

  “No one can find me,” I added. “So they know I’m in hiding. Big deal. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Really. There’s drama here—”

  “What kind of drama?”

  “It has nothing to do with me. Honest. Just small-town stuff.”

  “So you’re in a small town?”

  “Forget I said that. Anyhow, I’m safe.” For as long as it lasted. Another month. Maybe. Would that be long enough for the FBI to gather the evidence they needed to shut down the sweetheart deal? “Did they take anything?”

  “Not that I could tell. That’s what worries me the most. Take care of yourself, Josie.”

  I plucked the phone’s coiled cord. “I will. Remember, that’s why I left. You’ll cover for me with Mom, right?”

  Toni groaned. “She’s been fussing about you, by the way. She wants to know why you won’t answer your phone.”

  “Tell her you’ve talked to me, that I’m having a good time and keeping busy.” Keeping busy finding bodies, but she didn’t need to know that. Truth was, I had had one of the best days in my professional career. I’d found what I was meant to do. When I returned home, I vowed to find a position that let me spend time with patrons.

  “All right,” Toni said. “I’d better go. The baby is waking up.”

  “Kiss her for me. And don’t worry about the break-in. I’m completely safe where I am.”

  As I hung up, I had one comforting thought. If the break-in took place today, the stranger I’d found yesterday couldn’t have been sent from Bondwell or the senator’s office. They didn’t know where I was. Yet.

  * * *

  I paced my apartment, opening the refrigerator and shutting it, picking up the copy of Folk Witch that plagued me, then tossing it aside. The night stretched ahead, and I didn’t want to stay in the library alone. I bundled up in a coat and scarf and took the trail across the river to Darla’s diner. I couldn’t help but glance toward Big House. Its curtains were closed.

  The night air was moist with the dark smell of the river, and the breeze that had picked up earlier shook the trees and blew my curls around my face.

  Ten minutes later, I was at the diner. The parking lot was packed. Ilona’s Mercedes straddled two spots. I pushed open the front door to garlic-scented warmth and a livelier crowd than I’d have expected on a weeknight. Once again, I was struck by how different life was here than in D.C. The counter was shoulder-to-shoulder with flannel-shirted diners, and Willie Nelson played on the jukebox. Through the arch connecting the diner to the tavern, Ilona’s ivory suit lit up the dark. She was flanked by two men in plaid shirts and baseball caps, and she held a wineglass.

  “Josie.” Roz gestured from the corner we’d occupied at breakfast my first morning. “Come sit with me, if you want.”

  “It’s busy,” I said, draping my coat over my chair and taking in the aroma of french fries and something spicy in a tomato sauce.

  Roz leaned forward so I could better hear her. “It’s the murder. Kind of like a natural disaster. People want to hang out together.”

  “I guess that’s why I’m here, too. Plus, I’m hungry.”

  She caught my glance at her plate. “It’s spaghetti night. All you can eat, plus meatballs. One of Darla’s rare breaks from Southern food.” Roz’s seat faced the door. She waved, and I turned to see the sheriff amble over.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked. He’d changed out of uniform and wore a pocket T-shirt and jeans with a hand-tooled leather belt. He was still a big guy, but he was a lot less foreboding in street clothes.

  “I’m glad to see you,” I said. “Anything new to report? Anything you can tell us, anyway?”

  “We’ve ID’d the body. You girls found her. I feel you ought to know.”

  “Lips are sealed,” Roz said, mimicking a zipping motion.

  “Mine, too.” A pinprick of worry stirred in my gut, as I remembered the break-in at my apartment in D.C. “Was she—was she local?”

  “I can’t tell you that. Next of kin hasn’t been notified.”

  “It’s just that she didn’t look local,” I said. “Compared with what I see here—”

  “Not everyone here is a farmer,” Roz said. “Or a blue-collar worker. There’s a college in Forest Grove, you know.”

  “All right,” I said. “No offense meant. I just—wondered.”

  The sheriff’s gaze rested on me a moment longer than necessary. “Don’t you worry,” he said with purpose.

  “How about the murderer?” Roz asked. “Any leads there?”

  The sheriff’s face relaxed. “I feel fairly confident we’ll be making an arrest soon. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

  Both Roz and I stared at him, hoping to elicit more information, but he leaned back and kept silent.

  “I met Ilona Buckwalter today. Just before I came down here,” I said.

  “No kidding. She tell you I gave her a ticket?”

  The sheriff’s lips only twitched, but Roz burst into full-on laughter. It was a treat to see after her Eeyore behavior earlier. “What’d she say? She try to get you to buy her a drink?” Then, to me, “That’s her schtick. She brags she never buys her own drinks.”

  “She seems to be doing all right tonight.” I gestured toward the tavern.

  Roz’s smile vanished. “Does Darla know she’s here?”

  “Ilona told me she’s staying nearby until business is settled with the library.”

  �
�At the Raincloud Farm Guesthouse,” the sheriff said. “She bragged about it to me, too.”

  “Fancy,” Roz said. Then, for my benefit, “On one of the winery properties. Verandas, cathedral ceilings, wood-fired hot tub. I hear it’s a minimum of three hundred dollars a night. Lord, she’s irritating.” Roz was now back to full cranky mode.

  “I can see why she might grate on you,” I said, remembering Ilona listing the parts of the library she planned to salvage for personal use. “I was put off by her at first, too. She’s not bad, though. I mean, how else will Wilfred ever get on its feet?”

  Roz eyed me warily. “You don’t like the library?”

  “It’s not that. I love the library.” This was a fact. Saying good-bye wouldn’t be easy. “Maybe it’s time for Wilfred to move on. Think about its future, not mourn the past.”

  “What about saving the library keeps Wilfred in the past?” Roz’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “It’s just that . . . have you ever heard the story of how a shrimp grows?”

  Roz snorted, and her eyes snapped wide. “You’ve been talking to Ilona, all right, and she fed you the shrimp story, didn’t she? You know, how a shrimp needs to shed its shell before it can get bigger?”

  Shoot. I didn’t respond, but I guess my expression said it all. I was a sucker.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Roz said. “There’s no one here who hasn’t heard her preach at least once about the brave shrimp. One time—”

  The sheriff stood and pushed his chair under the table. “This is my cue to leave. Roz, Josie, I’ll be seeing you around. My takeout order should be just about ready.”

  “She’s a fraud, Josie.” Roz slid a fan from her purse and flipped it open. “Always has been.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She goes around talking about the jobs the retreat center will bring Wilfred, but she’s already solicited bids from a demo crew from California. Not here.”

  “How do you know?”

  Roz stopped fanning herself and examined the fan’s tip. Finally, she set it down. “She might have left her briefcase in the kitchen while she was in the restroom.”

  And Roz had perused its contents. I raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, don’t get so high and mighty,” she said. “I was only thinking about Wilfred.”

  “Sorry I’ve left you waiting.” Darla was at our table holding a pad. She drew a pen from behind her ear. “We’re slammed tonight. Having the spaghetti?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  An arpeggio of laughter rang from the tavern. Ilona emerged, dangling her key chain and waving at someone on a bar stool. It was too dark to make out who it was.

  “You settle up?” Darla said, not overly kindly.

  “Oh, the boys took care of it for me. It’s been years since I’ve had to buy a drink,” Ilona said and turned as she pushed open the front door. “A bientôt.”

  Darla turned to Roz and me. “What?”

  “It means ‘see you soon,’” I explained. “My dad teaches French history.”

  “Not that,” Darla said. “We’re not idiots, you know. I mean, what does she mean she’ll see us soon?”

  “She’s staying nearby,” Roz said.

  Darla swore under her breath. “There goes any semblance of peace in Wilfred.” She stomped toward the kitchen.

  “Everyone here seems to be either Team Library or Team Retreat Center. Tell me more about it. Which trustees agreed to sell the library?”

  “There are five trustees. Besides Darla, you’ve got Lyndon. Marilyn was thoughtful enough to make sure the caretaker was always involved. For the past twenty years, it’s been Lyndon.” Roz seemed to have to force her attention back to the subject at hand. “Then there’s Duke McConway. That’s him in the tavern.”

  “Sitting with Ilona?” Through the arch, I saw a baseball cap and bit of plaid shirt stretched over a generous belly. His hand-tooled belt had popped its silver rivets here and there.

  “That’s him,” Roz said, curling her lip.

  “Tell me more.”

  “He lives in the Magnolia Rolling Estates—just behind my trailer, in fact. Used to be a forklift driver, a good one, to hear him tell it. Then he repaired coin-operated telephones. I guess you know how that went.”

  I nodded.

  “Now he does odd jobs at some of the farms in the valley. His hobby is ballroom dancing.”

  “As in foxtrot and two-step?” I couldn’t have heard right.

  “He’s pretty good, too. For such a big guy, he’s light on his feet. Personality-wise, though, he’s no Fred Astaire. Playing tunes with his armpit is more his speed.”

  “Okay, so that’s Darla, Lyndon, and Duke.” I counted them off my fingers. “I assume Darla and Lyndon were pro-library. How did Duke vote?”

  “For the retreat center, of course. He’s counting on a plum forklift driving job. You see him kissing up to Ilona.”

  “Two more trustees left,” I said, my blood pressure rising. “Ilona is the fourth, of course.” I shook my head. “Who’s the fifth trustee?”

  “That seat belongs to the Wilfred family.”

  “So, it’s vacant,” I said.

  “Mostly. For years the votes had been unanimous. We didn’t need the Wilfred family vote. This time Ilona made sure the vote came in, and she made sure it was the vote she wanted.”

  “Sam.” I was surprised I’d actually spoken his name. “Don’t tell me Sam voted for it.”

  “He did. His was the vote that cleared the way for the retreat center.”

  “He loves the library.”

  Roz pursed her lips. “Or not.”

  “He came by the first night he was in town. He told me he feels happy there.” I was having a hard time taking all this in. My ears began to ring. It’s not fair, I thought.

  I had a hunch Roz would reach for her fan, and she didn’t disappoint.

  Darla slid oval platters heaped with spaghetti in front of us and hurried away. There was no way I’d be able to eat all that. I speared a meatball.

  Roz paused, hand on her fan. “You’re planning to leave Wilfred, aren’t you?”

  I’d just had one of the most rewarding days I’d ever experienced as a librarian. Somehow, I’d seemed to wake up. I saw the world more clearly, felt it more deeply. Strange, nearly magical, things were happening, but they felt so normal. Whether it was Oregon’s country air or the shock of finding a body—or something else I didn’t understand—I couldn’t ignore it.

  Ilona didn’t care about the library. All she cared about was her commission, and she’d lie and cajole to get it. Thinking of how I’d swallowed the shrimp story whole, I felt my face burn. It wasn’t as if I had anything to go home for, anyway. My apartment had been broken into, and Anton had disappeared. Going home meant putting my family at risk. But where else could I escape?

  No. It wasn’t right that Ilona would steal the library from Wilfred and lie about what would replace it. Not fair. I set down my fork. The ringing in my ears had intensified into a tidal wave of crashing sound. My finger reached under my collar for my shoulder and touched my birthmark.

  I knew what I had to do. The rush of noise halted.

  “I’m staying right here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I was in my office before the sun rose, rooting through the library’s records and taking notes. Thunder rumbled across the valley, but my office was a warm cocoon. I tapped my pen on my notebook. Rain pelted outside, streaking my window and matching my mood.

  “What are you doing here so early?” Roz’s voice startled me. Today she wore a polka-dotted blouse that accentuated her round face, and she’d made an attempt at lipstick. Its dusky rose was already wearing at the center.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I have an idea for stopping the library’s sale, and I wanted to get started on it.”

  Roz dropped into the armchair. “Yeah?”

  “Ilona submitted a report showing that selling the library would benefit Wilfred finan
cially, right?”

  She nodded. “If you want to call a self-interested pitch at stuffing her own wallet a report, then, sure.”

  “Well, what if we gave the judge our own report showing how important the library is? I bet I could pull together something convincing about the difference having a library has made. I’ve done research reports for members of Congress.”

  I looked away. I hadn’t meant to drop in the last bit. I didn’t want to be traced back to my old job.

  “What can we say that the judge doesn’t already know? I mean, it’s clear what we do here.” She frowned. “No, I really don’t think it would help.”

  “You’d be surprised. Look at what I’ve dug up so far.” I waved toward the mess of papers stacked on my desk.

  Past librarians had been good about saving mimeographed schedules of library events, and I’d found records going back to World War II. On some, the blue ink had faded beyond legibility, but I had plenty to work with. Over the years, the library had hosted Esperanto classes, fly-tying workshops, Bible studies, a Golden Age mystery book club (I wished I could have been at that one), a military vehicle club, Polish cooking demonstrations, a haiku club, and even a square dancing meetup, although I wasn’t sure how they pulled that off. Some of the librarians had saved sign-in sheets, giving me an estimate of how many patrons had been served.

  Circulation records were good, too, despite the lack of a digital system. Except for a stretch in the early 1970s, past librarians had prepared quarterly reports, first for Marilyn Wilfred, then for the trustees, on the number of books lent and community members served.

  “We can tell him a lot. For instance, did you know that last year alone the library sponsored seventy-eight meetings and twenty-five study groups? We lent more than two thousand books. Plus, think of the résumés drafted, people who have learned English, students tutored—all of that.”

  “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to put something together. Although I bet it’s too late.”

  “Maybe it is,” I said, not taking Roz’s downer attitude personally. “But maybe it’s not. We won’t know unless we try. Why not text Darla and ask?”