ALL
HALLOWS’
EVIL
Valerie Wolzien
© Valerie Wolzien 1992
Valerie Wolzien has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1992 by Ballantine Books.
This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
This book is dedicated to my grandmother,
Lena Lisanby
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
ONE
An angel was checking out books at the circulation desk, a mermaid was sprawled on the floor in the magazine section, and a tall gray-haired witch was helping a four-foot werewolf search for a 1976 almanac. So Susan Henshaw wasn’t terribly surprised when she almost stepped on a man in a business suit with a knife in his chest. At first she thought he was a dummy. Then, when his eyes opened and he gasped for breath, she decided he was a teenager in the middle of some gruesome prank. But when he died, she knew he was the victim of murder.
Middle-aged housewives rarely scream in libraries, so it’s definitely an attention getter. In moments she was surrounded by most of the staff as well as curious patrons.
“What the … ?”
“Someone call the police!” The order came from the tall caterpillar, who yanked off a mask. It was Charles Grace, the head librarian, a man in his early thirties, who, Susan had heard it said, looked like a librarian. An elderly gypsy scooted off toward the phone, strings of beads flopping around her shoulders as she went. A kind witch yanked her black robe over her head and placed it gingerly on the body. Although the knife piercing the man’s chest stuck up in a macabre way, it was a relief when he was out of sight.
“Who found him?” Charles Grace peered around the gathering through tortoiseshell glasses.
“I did,” Susan answered quietly. “I found him,” she said more loudly.
“Then you’ll have to wait for the police to arrive,” Mr. Grace continued, taking charge. “Everyone else should leave the area.” He looked around. “If one or two of you women could make sure the children stay away from this part of the library,” he suggested to a group standing around with their mouths open, “then our other patrons could congregate in the reading area near the checkout desk. I’m sure the police are going to want a complete record of where everybody was and exactly what everyone was doing when … when this happened. Perhaps, Miss Marshall, you could go over there and make sure no one touches anything.
“And you, Mrs … ?” He looked at Susan, eyebrows raised in inquiry.
Susan introduced herself.
“Mrs. Henshaw.” He chose to ignore the familiarity of her given name. “You had better stay close to me. We’ll just sit over there.” He indicated a tiny seating area where they would be able to continue their viewing of the body. “And we’ll wait for the police, won’t we?”
Susan, who did not appreciate being treated as a child, didn’t bother to answer, though she did as he suggested. She picked a chair where she could turn her back on the body, and sat. Her hands were shaking, and her knees weren’t much more stable. Fortunately Hancock, Connecticut, was a small suburb, and the police station was only a few miles from the library; help would be here soon.
The police would undoubtedly want information from her, but, although she was apparently first on the scene, she really didn’t have anything to say about it. She wasn’t even sure exactly when she had discovered the body, she thought, looking guiltily at her watch. It was 11:32. She concentrated on her day. She had left the house early, rushing to get errands done so she’d be home when the first trick or treaters appeared. Generally the preschool children started knocking on the door immediately after lunch. They were her favorites, reminding Susan of when her son and daughter had gone out for the first time in handmade clown costumes, bouncing down the sidewalk with their ruffs flopping in the breeze, thrilled and surprised to discover that all they had to do was hold out a bag and an adult would drop candy bars into it.
They had been so sweet. Susan smiled nostalgically, wondering what those same children were planning to wear when they went out tonight. Both had insisted that this year their costumes were to be a surprise to their family, although each teen had spent untold hours on the phone with their friends planning the evening.
Susan brushed her honey brown hair off her forehead and sighed. At forty-three, she was beginning to forget the hassles of raising children and yearn for the “good old days”—back before she had teenagers in the house and bodies in the town library. She sighed again and unbuckled the flap on her purse. She hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch; maybe there was some gum or something …
“Exactly what are you doing?”
Susan, startled, looked into the outraged face of Charles Grace. “I was looking for something to eat.”
“I would feel more comfortable if you would just leave everything where it is. And I’m sure the police will agree with me.”
Susan looked down at the Mark Cross bag, a present from her mother-in-law on her last birthday. Did this meek-looking man think she was going to pull a knife from its smooth interior and stab him? Or anyone else? “This is my purse. I had it with me when I came into the library. It has nothing to do with this … this death,” she insisted.
“We’ll see what the police say, won’t we?” he answered rather priggishly.
“We certainly will,” Susan agreed emphatically, thinking of her relationship with the town’s police. She had helped them solve more than one crime already. And she was ready to do it again whether they wanted her assistance or not. Because, in truth, her children didn’t need her very much anymore, her husband was busier than ever at work, and she was getting just a bit bored at home.
“They’re here.” The head librarian announced the police officers’ arrival.
From the tone of his voice, Susan wondered if he was planning to have her hanged or just arrested. She turned around and smiled at the uniformed officers’ approach.
“Mrs. Henshaw.” The taller of the two young men smiled at her as he spoke. “Why do we always find you around dead bodies?”
Charles Grace looked from the policeman to the woman who sat across from him, and smirked, apparently thinking he had single-handedly apprehended a serial killer. Susan got up and shook hands with the two officers.
“The body is right over there.” She pointed. “I don’t know who he is,” she continued, as the two officers walked over to the man on the floor. “But this is Charles Grace.” She nodded to the librarian.
Apparently Charles Grace didn’t think her introduction was adequate; he pushed ahead of her and spoke hurriedly to the men. “I am the head librarian. I’m in charge of everything that goes on in this library. Everything,” he repeated, when no one even bothered looking at him.
One of the policemen bent down and gazed under the black drape. Nothing was said for a moment as they looked from the body to each other.
“This is murder, Mr. Grace. And when it comes to murder, we’re in charge, whether it happens in your library or anyplace else in town,” one of the officers said, standing up.
The other man turned away and spoke quietly into the walkie-talkie he pulled from his hip. Charles Grace seemed slightly nonplussed, glancing around as if hoping to find compensation by nagging someone. Unfortunately Susan was nearby.
“Perhaps, Mrs. Henshaw,
you might be so good as to …” he began in an obnoxious voice.
“We will need Mrs. Henshaw here,” one of the policemen announced “But you could do something for us Mr. Grace.”
“Naturally, anything. We are all employees of Hancock, after all,” the librarian agreed, trying to ingratiate himself with the men. “We should do everything possible to help each other, shouldn’t we?”
“I wonder if we could use your office? You do have a private office, don’t you?”
“Yes. The other librarians use the large room behind the checkout desk, but my work area is considerably more private. Do you want to go there now?”
“Yes. My partner can stay with the body until the county medical officer arrives, but I’d like to talk to Mrs. Henshaw someplace where we can’t be overheard, if …”
“You’ll have no problem in my office. I had an excellent acoustic firm come out from the city to soundproof my office—at my own expense. Most people don’t realize how much confidential information comes to a librarian. I can assure you that no one will overhear us there. Just follow me.” And he spun on his heels and headed out of the stacks toward the open area of the room.
Hancock was proud of its library, and color pictures of it appeared on all literature distributed by the chamber of commerce. People who didn’t know the building’s history were sometimes surprised that the town had chosen to display a church on its official masthead. They didn’t know the effort that had gone into turning the dilapidated old Presbyterian church, long ago abandoned by a congregation that preferred light and space to termite-ridden charm, into a modern suburban library.
The basic design had changed during a year of committee meetings, the original wing metastasizing into three. The interior of the old building had been gutted and joined with the new structures, providing wonderful internal space with a unique and charming exterior. And civic-minded Hancock had been so successful in passing a bond issue in the middle of a recession that it had received a full-page accolade in a recent issue of the Library Journal.
“Do you know where he’s taking us?” the officer whispered to Susan, as they walked between the stacks and by a series of low shelves housing an extensive collection of videocassettes.
“His office is in the belfry—the old church’s bell tower.” Even in these circumstances, she smiled slightly. She had been wanting to see this room ever since she first heard about its existence. She hurried along between the two men, ignoring the stares of library patrons awaiting police questioning. So what if they thought she was the murderer? She noticed a woman pull her tiny son, dressed as a computer, out of her sight. She also noticed a reporter from the local paper; if she spoke to him later, possibly his story would clear her name. But, at present, she was too busy to worry about her reputation.
The trio hurried around the large circulation desk, through a door to the right of the building’s main entrance, and up a circular oak staircase. Susan had just time enough to note how beautifully the wood had been refinished when they reached the top and Charles Grace’s office.
Wow. She was so impressed that she almost said it aloud. The room was a hexagon. Built-in worktables, desks, and shelves lined the walls, and eight tall, pointed windows looked out over the town, the pond, and a distant mall on the highway. The ceiling peaked high in the center, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the bell that must have hung there. Unfortunately there wasn’t time to think about such things. They weren’t alone. A woman was sitting at Charles Grace’s desk. And, with her head down in her arms, it appeared that she was crying.
“Who … ?”
“I thought you were going to stay with our patrons, Marion.” Charles Grace didn’t let the policeman finish his statement.
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” The middle-aged woman raised her head and looked earnestly at the intruders through clear blue eyes. She paused to smooth her short blond hair with a well-groomed hand. Not that it needed it. For a woman professing acute distress, she seemed in remarkable control. Her curls were in place, her conservative clothing uncrumpled, her discreet makeup not smeared. And Susan noticed that there weren’t any tears in her eyes. “I know you asked me to help out, but I just could not bring myself to stay in the same room with that body. I’m very sensitive about this type of thing. I always have been.”
Susan wondered where she had gotten this experience with dead bodies. Charles Grace, apparently annoyed that one of his employees had chosen to ignore his direct order, scowled at the woman. Susan and the policeman exchanged looks.
“I would like to talk with Mrs. Henshaw in private,” the policeman reminded the other man.
Marion Marshall had no trouble taking the hint. “I’ll be fine,” she assured the group, getting up quickly. “I’ll just get out of your way.” She looked around. “I do need to find my purse.”
“Right here.” Charles Grace removed the well-polished taupe bag from the top of a file cabinet and handed it to her. “If you don’t need me,” he began to the policeman, “we can go downstairs and see how everyone else is getting along.”
“Excellent idea. But you’ll both stay around until we’ve finished questioning everybody.”
“Naturally. I, myself, won’t leave the building until this is all cleared up.” He motioned his employee to precede him down the stairs. “You will call me when I can be of service, of course.”
“Of course.” This last was said to the balding top of his head. “We will call you both as soon as possible.” The policeman didn’t say anything more until he had heard the door at the bottom of the stairs shut tight; then he turned to Susan.
“So what do you know about these people?”
“I … I don’t even know who the dead man is,” she stammered, surprised by the question.
“We’ll get an ID on him soon enough, but what I could use is some information about this place and the people who work here.”
“You’re thinking that there must be a reason why he was killed here instead of someplace else,” Susan said slowly.
“I haven’t the foggiest. But I do know we’re going to be spending a lot of time questioning the people here, and I was wondering who you would consider the most reliable—if you have any opinions at all. I …” He was interrupted by strange cheeping sounds coming from his belt. He checked his beeper and quickly reached for the phone. “That’s headquarters. I’d better call in.”
“Do you want me to leave?” She started for the stairs.
“Just hang around a moment, will you?” he asked, dialing. “Oh, hi.”
Susan decided to take the call as an opportunity to snoop around the office a little. She peered at a long strip of cork that wound around three walls of the room and functioned as a bulletin board. Just what would a head librarian hang up to inspire him at his work? Quotations from famous books? Author’s thoughts on great literature? Reading lists? She leaned forward, squinting slightly. It took her only a few minutes to read her way around the walls, and when she was done, she was more than a little disappointed. Notices of meetings and business conventions, more than a few copies of preliminary budgets for the library’s next fiscal year, personnel schedules for the next three months … Except for a sheet listing some Dewey decimal notations, nothing that wouldn’t be found in almost any business office. So much for literary ambience. In fact, she thought, looking around the entire room, there were possibly fewer books here than in most offices. There was, however, one sign that this was a librarian’s office: on the floor she saw one of those tiny purple slips of paper that were stuck in the back of books to indicate the due date. Susan bent down and picked it up. She smiled, wondering if Charles Grace used them to mark his spot in books he was reading—and if they were forever falling out so he, like many of his patrons, couldn’t remember the book’s due date.
“Find something interesting?”
Susan looked around for a wastepaper basket and, not seeing one, put the scrap in her pocket and shook her head. “No. Are you
done?”
“Yes, but we’re not going to have time to talk. The chief is here. I’d better get back downstairs. It looks as if this investigation is going to proceed in an orderly fashion.”
Susan looked at him curiously.
“We have a new police chief,” he explained. “You didn’t know? I thought there had been a lot written about it in the paper.”
“I frequently don’t get time to read it all that thoroughly,” she explained, thinking about the local paper that was tossed on her lawn each week. She usually checked out the specials at the grocery store and then dumped the paper in the recycle bag beside the week’s New York Times.
“Well, he’s tough—believes in following the rules exactly, traveling in a straight line. Probably trying to make a reputation for himself …” He stopped talking. “Well, you’ll see when you meet him. But he might think it a little irregular that I’m talking to you first.” He stopped and smiled. “I’d better get going.”
“I’ll come down, too,” Susan offered. There wasn’t anything to keep her up here.
The police chief had indeed arrived, and Susan discovered that there were many more people around than when they had gone up into the belfry. The number of people in uniform had tripled, and most of them were standing around a tall man with his back to her. Her heart stopped for a moment when he turned. Brett Fortesque. The detective who had investigated the first murder in which she’d been involved. And he was as good-looking as he had been those many years ago. Would he remember … ?
He did. He was coming over with both his hands stretched out. “Susan.” He smiled. “It’s good to see you again.”
Well, maybe she hadn’t aged all that badly in the past few years.
All Hallows Evil Page 1