Bait and Witch

by Angela M. Sanders

  “True. But you’d think it would show somewhere. Somehow.”

  “Maybe if he were the calculating type. Not Craig. I can’t see him planning something like this, but in the heat of the moment, who knows?”

  “You’re pretty sure about it, then?” The cover of The Fugitive flitted through my mind.

  “Oh, definitely. Burdock has a record as long as your arm. That’s not even counting what’s in his sealed juvenile files.”

  “Violent crimes?”

  He shrugged. “Mostly petty stuff. Shoplifting, trespassing. He was working up to bigger things, though. The sheriff in Forest Grove bagged him for breaking and entering last year. Tried to rob the Thousand Subs deli. Not only did the security camera catch him, everything was locked up for the night. Even the cold cuts. Couldn’t have made it out with so much as a slice of bologna.” He shook his head. “Never was the brightest bulb.”

  “Murder isn’t petty theft or breaking and entering,” I pointed out.

  “Craig had dreams of being a big-time crook. Talk to anyone, and they’ll tell you. He could spend hours at the tavern preaching about how society was stupid to stick to a regime of law and order, and all it took was the guts to break the rules to get ahead.” Disgust was clear in the sheriff’s voice.

  “You must have some kind of proof,” I said. “I just can’t help but wonder if it’s a setup.”

  He steepled his hands over his belly. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone might have framed Craig. Maybe planted evidence, or—”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “I haven’t heard a single person say Craig would kill someone. Plus, there’s more.” I leaned forward. I didn’t want to say it, but the truth had to come out. “The night I arrived, I saw a light at Big House. I think Sam arrived a day earlier than he lets on.”

  The sheriff’s demeanor remained unchanged. “I know all about Sam, and he’s no worry to you.” He stood.

  “You’re sure? Why would he lie about when he came to town?”

  “I told you. Sam’s accounted for.”

  I couldn’t relax. It was all too easy. “You’re still questioning people, though. Lyndon, for instance. You must not be completely sure about Craig.” I didn’t like speaking to the sheriff while he towered above me, so I stood, too.

  “Procedure. We had ample evidence to book Burdock, but we need to cover all our bases. Besides, folks like Lyndon might have information we can use to seal the case.”

  I couldn’t fault his reasoning. “Ilona Buckwalter says troublemakers have been hanging out on the library’s grounds for years.”

  He sighed. “True enough, although it’s usually just kids taking a bottle into the woods. Count on Ilona to use it as an argument in her favor.” He must have noticed my frown, because he added, “I’m sorry you stumbled into all this. I admit Darla might have been a bit misleading in offering you the job.”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. It was surprisingly light, given its size. “Don’t worry. It will all come out all right in the end. I can’t tell you everything I know, but I want to give you some assurance.”

  “Thank you.” I moved to open the door, then dropped my hand. “Oh, before you go, what about the victim? You told me earlier that you’d identified her.”

  “It’s no secret now. Her prints were in the FBI’s database. Her name’s January Stephens. She has a short—but serious—record. A professional. Craig was likely trying to get a spot in her organization.”

  “A professional what?”

  The sheriff’s hand replaced mine on the doorknob, and he pushed the door open. Roz loitered suspiciously close, pretending to examine the contents of the silverware drawer.

  “What they call a ‘fixer.’ Isn’t that interesting?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “A fixer? What’s that?” I asked, dreading the response. “A fixer is someone an organization sends to solve problems that can’t be settled legally,” Sheriff Dolby said.

  Uh-oh. “Like what?”

  His boots creaked as he leaned on one hip. “Say a CEO has a sideline of embezzling, and he’s on the verge of being busted. He hires a fixer to solve the situation with bribery, maybe. Blackmail works, too. Sometimes even murder.”

  I cringed. I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t hide any longer. I was withholding evidence. Plus, it wasn’t about just me. Craig’s future was on the line. Maybe he was a troublemaker and a lousy boyfriend, but that didn’t mean he deserved to spend his life in prison.

  “I have something to tell you.” The words came out like pulled teeth.

  The sheriff looked at me, then glanced toward the kitchen. “Roz?”

  “What?” Roz said. “I was looking for grapefruit spoons, that’s all.”

  “Trying to listen in is more like it. Let’s take a walk, Josie. We’ll go somewhere private. Grab your jacket,” Sheriff Dolby said.

  I shrugged on the plaid jacket from my office and followed him out to the path along the Kirby River. The sheriff set a meandering pace. A breeze rustled the leaves still clinging to the cottonwood trees. Woodsmoke drifting up from someone’s woodstove in the trailer park spiked the air with the smell of autumn.

  “What do you have to tell me?” he said.

  Here it was. The moment when my anonymity and safety—such as it was—would come to an end. “She was here for me. January Stephens.”

  “For you? And why would that be?” Although the sheriff couldn’t have even been my father’s age, he sounded like a grandfather quizzing his granddaughter on her homework.

  “Because there’s an assassin after me.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how ridiculous they sounded.

  “Ms. Way, Josie, you’re telling me someone wants to kill you? I can hardly believe that.”

  He took the news surprisingly well. I glanced up to a calm face. Not bored, but not excited. He didn’t believe me.

  “I’m telling you the truth.” Telling the truth and possibly laying a fast track to the cemetery. “I came to Wilfred to hide. I used to work at the Library of Congress. Actually, I still work there. They think I’m on vacation.”

  “Yet you took the job of Wilfred’s librarian.”

  “I know. I would have stayed, too—at least awhile.”

  “Hmm,” he said with put-on seriousness. “So, you’re a librarian with a killer on her tail. Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “You don’t believe me,” I said, anger rising. “I’m trying to tell you something difficult.”

  “I’m sorry. Please. Continue.”

  I studied his expression again. He was listening. “A little over a week ago, I was with a colleague, and we overheard a congressional staffer making a sweetheart deal with a lobbyist from Bondwell Corporation.”

  “Bondwell. That’s aeronautics, right?”

  “Right.” At last, he was taking me seriously. “We reported it. It was a big deal. It flew up the chain of command, and by the next day the FBI was involved.”

  “How does this put your life at risk?”

  “My colleague—the one who overheard the conversation with me? He disappeared the morning after the investigation went public.”

  The sheriff’s footsteps crunched on the gravel path. We came to the embankment where I’d found the body. The brambles were flattened in some areas and completely cut away in others. The sheriff’s office must have taken them to examine for hair and fibers—or maybe they’d simply been in the way. The main thing was that there was no dead woman.

  “You were threatened?” the sheriff asked.

  “No. But after Anton disappeared, I was afraid—I was afraid the same thing would happen to me. So I took the library job here. I’d seen the ad in the Library Gazette.” Anton had read it aloud to me the day before, and we’d laughed. Who’d take a job in some backward hamlet in Oregon?

  “Who knows you’re here? I mean, besides us.”

  “No one. Not even my family. I
told everyone I was going to Manhattan on vacation.”

  “That’s a long vacation.”

  “I’d planned to turn it into medical leave. I just needed to hide until the case was settled or went to court.”

  The sheriff gave a wry smile. “To think Darla was so worked up that she hired you without telling you the library was on the chopping block. And you weren’t planning to stick around, anyway.” He stuffed both hands in his pockets. “Please, go on.”

  “That’s the whole story. I told my boss and family I was going on vacation, but I came here instead. I left my phone at home so I couldn’t be tracked, and I withdrew money from my savings account.” Thank goodness for the tiny inheritance from my grandmother.

  “So, no knows you’re here.”

  “Not a soul. I’ve called home so no one worries, but I blocked the phone number.” The library’s trustees had purchased my plane ticket. I hadn’t used a credit card.

  “But you think the victim was sent here to kill you?”

  The covers of two of my favorite vintage crime novels, Headed for a Hearse and Death Walks on Cat Feet, flashed through my brain. “Yes.”

  The sheriff stopped and turned to the view of town. A thin trail of smoke rose from a chimney beyond the grocery store. Autumn was hard upon us. At home, Mom would be filling the big bowl on the sideboard with quinces, and Jean would be making teas with cardamom and cinnamon.

  “Josie, I don’t want to dismiss your story. I’m sure you have lots of reasons to worry about folks being unhappy with your discoveries in Washington.”

  “You don’t think the body has anything to do with it?”

  “No. No, I don’t. We have firm evidence against Craig.”

  “I can’t believe it.” I’d been so sure. It was gut-level knowledge.

  “For one, whoever killed her was already in Wilfred. There’s only one road into town, and I was at the speed trap all evening. I saw everyone passing through.”

  “At some point you had to look at your phone or take dinner. You couldn’t have watched the road every single minute,” I said.

  “Craig was seen heading toward the library on foot.”

  “Crossing the river?” I asked.

  “Not quite, but on his way.”

  There was more, I knew. I waited.

  “Also, we found a handgun at Craig’s.”

  I faced Sheriff Dolby. “A handgun—you mean the handgun?”

  “We’re still evaluating it, but it looks conclusive. It was a weapon with a silencer, not something you find every day. Its identifying info was wiped.”

  “How did he get a gun like that?”

  “I doubt it was his. It likely belonged to the victim. They got into an argument, Craig grabbed the weapon, and that was that.”

  I let that sink in. The facts were irrefutable, but they still didn’t sit right. “Could it be a setup? I mean, maybe someone’s framing him.”

  The sheriff gave me a “where did you come from?” look and ignored my question. “Also, I should tell you that as a matter of policy, I ran your information through our databases. I’ve known about you and your allegations about Bondwell and Senator Markham’s aide for a few days now.”

  “Oh.” I was momentarily tongue-tied. We’d come to where the trail entered the woods. I couldn’t see far with the thick canopy shrouding the daylight. “You didn’t say anything.”

  “I figured you had your reasons for keeping your silence. If the department gets notice there’s a search for you, or if you give me any reason to question your safety, I’ll have to notify the FBI. Until then, we’ll let things stay as they are.”

  Mute, I nodded.

  “So, no crazy risks, and no messing in the murder investigation. Understood?”

  The forlorn cover of Postscript to Nightmare seared itself in my brain. I nodded once again.

  * * *

  Both relieved and disturbed, I returned to my office. I needed a moment to come down from the drama surrounding my confession to the sheriff. I glanced at the clock. Roz would be here for another hour. Before she went home, I needed to finish the report supporting the library.

  I’d accumulated a lot of good information. I could enumerate numbers of books lent, events held, requests for information answered—at least, I could for most years and could extrapolate others. What I couldn’t do was respond to the argument that the library’s property was a breeding ground for trouble. Not with a murder to explain away.

  If Craig Burdock really did turn out to be the murderer, it would only lend credence to what people had said: Troublemakers cross the river to the library’s grounds. Replace the library with a facility with lots of visitors and even security guards, and the troublemakers would move on.

  It was a tough argument to refute, and I wouldn’t try. Instead, I’d lay out how the library had served the town. I opened my laptop, and Rodney leapt into my lap. He butted his head against my chin.

  “Sweet kitty,” I said. His responding purr was loud enough to draw my attention. “What? You want something, don’t you?”

  He stepped onto the desk, purring with enough ferocity that he had to open his mouth.

  “Is it this?” I picked up a copy of Murder on the Orient Express. I hadn’t set it on my desk, but I was starting to get used to books appearing randomly.

  Rodney melted on the desk and plopped to his side. He licked a paw.

  “You like it that I found this book. Okay.”

  Of course I’d read Murder on the Orient Express. In my teens I’d flown through Agatha Christie’s mysteries. Hercule Poirot was a thorough investigator. In this novel, he’d questioned each suspect twice. The paperback tingled with energy. It wanted me to investigate the murder.

  “You’re joking,” I said aloud. In response, the book warmed in my hands. I dropped it on my desk and stared.

  I forced myself to breathe evenly. Something very strange was happening between books and me. It felt almost—magical. There was that word again. I’d always loved books, but never before had books been alive for me. At least, not beyond the printed page. And they certainly hadn’t materialized like this.

  Something was going on here, and it wasn’t clear to me. Not yet. The change from my old life to this one had shaken something loose. Something. Whatever that was. Now Murder on the Orient Express had presented itself. Why?

  The book wanted me to channel Poirot. It wasn’t satisfied with the sheriff’s determination that Craig Burdock had killed the woman I’d found, and it wanted me to find the real murderer. Find the real murderer, and the library’s grounds would be less of a threat to Wilfred, bolstering the argument that the library was beneficial to the town. Keep the library, and I could stay on, undetected—as long as the sheriff didn’t give me away. An innocent man didn’t stay in jail. And the books would be happy.

  “Okay,” I said aloud. Rodney raised his head. I closed the laptop and pulled a notepad and pen in front of me. “Motive,” I jotted.

  Two main motives came to mind. First, the murderer could have thought the victim was me. Chilling, but possible. Both of us were women, city dwellers, and strangers to Wilfred. In that case, the motive was to eliminate evidence that could be used in a trial against Bondwell and Richard White. The murderer would be someone from out of town. No way Bondwell would hire a rookie like Craig to go after me.

  The sheriff was convinced this wasn’t the case, though. Remembering this, my shoulders relaxed. He said that no one could have entered town at that time. He was at the speed trap and saw everyone coming and going.

  Okay, motive number two: the sheriff’s premise that Craig wanted to join a criminal gang, and that his discussion with a professional criminal went south, leading Craig to kill her. The sheriff had found the murder weapon in Craig’s apartment. If this is the way the crime went, the sheriff was on task to solve it.

  Then of course the murder could have happened for any number of other reasons. Maybe a homicidal stranger was living in the woods and s
omehow lured out-of-towners to the library and knocked them off. Maybe the victim killed herself, and Craig found her gun and walked off with it. Maybe one of Craig’s ex-girlfriends caught him in the act with the stranger and framed him.

  Besides that, anyone intent on the library’s sale had a motive to make the library’s ground feel like a dangerous place. I shook my head. Murder was extreme, even for someone as fervent on turning a buck as Ilona.

  I stared at my list, Rodney purring from my lap. What next? I’d work backward and eliminate the primary suspect. Yes.

  The first step was to figure out if Craig was truly the murderer.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It wa s barely noon. I wanted to spend a few minutes following up on a hunch. I told Roz I’d be away from the library for a few minutes and grabbed my coat.

  Lalena Dolby’s trailer wasn’t hard to find. A plywood sign shaped like a hand hung from the mailbox post announcing PALM READINGS, APPLY WITHIN.

  Most of the dozen or so mobile homes in the Magnolia Rolling Estates were squat doublewides with porches and clipped evergreen shrubs. Not Lalena’s. She lived in a pink singlewide that must have rolled off the assembly line when sedans had fins. Tubs of pink roses surrounded it, and a wind chime sounded low notes from the breeze off the river. Like its neighbors, this trailer perched on a four-foot-high foundation of cinder blocks. From the stoop, I could barely make out the library’s top windows through the trees on the bluff across the river.

  I knocked, and a dog barked inside. The door opened to Lalena wrapped in a ruffled robe holding half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She must have been expecting someone else, because her face fell. “Sailor, no barkies. Hi, Josie. Can I help you?”

  “Could I talk with you for a few minutes?”

  She eyed me warily. “Why? I turned in all my books on time. The New Orleans book on hoodoo, I swear it was already damaged. Someone else must have dropped it in the bathtub.”

  “It’s not that. I wanted to ask you about Craig Burdock.”