Death in the Stacks Page 9

  She bundled herself up in her robe and took the last of the cookies with her as she snuggled up on her couch. Heathcliff immediately jumped up beside her and stretched his length along her legs with his chin draped over her ankles.

  It was comforting being in her own space with her dog. The night was dark and chilly, but they were safe inside. She chewed a molasses cookie and pondered the events of the night.

  Olive was dead. At that stark thought, the cookie got lodged in Lindsey’s throat, and she had to hack and wheeze a bit before she could suck in a decent breath. Her eyes watered, and she felt a sob bubble up in her throat.

  She had seen dead bodies before—in fact, she had seen more than her share—but this was different. This death made her feel tainted somehow, as if she were an accomplice to whoever had killed Olive because Lindsey had felt such animosity toward the woman herself.

  It made her feel awful, truly, purely terrible, as if her own anger had caused Olive’s death. Lindsey wasn’t sure how to process these feelings. She could take no joy in Olive’s murder, but like Charlie, she wasn’t terribly distraught either. Olive had been a vicious woman who enjoyed making everyone around her suffer. When a person threw out that sort of karma, was it any surprise when something terrible happened to them?

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was late, and she was exhausted, but still, she stayed on the couch eating cookies. She couldn’t stop thinking about the dinner, revisiting who had been where and when as if she could find the puzzle piece that was out of place, rearrange it and have the answer to who killed Olive Boyle.

  It wasn’t that simple, however. There were too many players in this drama, and too many unknown entities. They’d had so many out-of-town visitors. How could she know who might have used the dinner as an opportunity to kill Olive? Was it a stranger? Or worse, was it someone she knew? Someone she trusted?

  She shivered even though she wasn’t cold. She told herself it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t going to investigate. Sure, she was curious, and she felt a certain responsibility, because the murder had happened in her library, but she had promised that she wouldn’t butt into any investigations anymore.

  Having faced down the barrel of a loaded gun just a few months before, Lindsey had a new appreciation for her life and how much she wanted to keep on living it. The thought of losing her life because she was overly inquisitive did not appeal to her in the least.

  She reached into the bag for one more cookie. It was empty. She sighed. It was just as well. She needed to go to bed. The library was closed tomorrow, but a specialized cleaning company would be there to try and get the bloodstains out of the carpet. She felt the cookies in her belly burble in protest.

  She slid off of the couch to get ready for bed. Once she’d checked the apartment, brushed her teeth and assisted Heathcliff up onto the foot of the bed, she tried to settle in and sleep. Nancy was right—everything was better after a good night’s rest.

  She lay there, waiting, willing the drowsiness to overtake her. Instead, she kept flashing on Paula’s face when she had looked Emma right in the eye and said she’d been working on cleaning the circulation area. She had lied, and Lindsey had no idea why. She didn’t want to think it, but she could only figure one reason for Paula to have lied about her whereabouts: because she had murdered Olive Boyle.

  11

  Lindsey stared at the bakery case. She needed to eat something, but what muffin paired best with bloodstained carpet? She went with the pumpkin chocolate chip, knowing full well she wasn’t going to eat it.

  She had left Heathcliff with Nancy and dressed in her warm wool jacket and jeans before she biked to the library to meet the professional cleaning crew who was arriving to see what they could do about the flooring where Olive Boyle had been stabbed to death.

  The thought of hot coffee and a muffin had lured her to the bakery counter located in the small-town grocery store that she passed every day on her way to the library. Although, she suspected that today she didn’t want coffee and a muffin as much as she wanted to stall her arrival at the library.

  Climbing back onto her bike, she looked out at the pier. Sure enough, Sully’s tour boat was loading up, and even at a distance she could tell that some of the people boarding were the Londoners and the Arizonans she had met the night before. She briefly wondered if there was a murderer in their midst.

  She shook her head. Nope. Not going there. Really.

  She pedaled slowly to the library and locked up her bike on the rack by the back door and let herself in, deactivating the alarm as she went. The cleaners were coming in an hour. She wasn’t generally the jumpy type, so she found it odd that being in the deserted darkened building suddenly gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  Lindsey took a deep breath and tried to calm the beat of her heart, which felt heavy in her chest. She stood still, listening to the silence of the library, a quiet in which she usually found comfort. A shiver started at the base of her spine, and she moved over to the main set of light switches and flicked every single one on.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  Not surprisingly there was no response.

  She scanned the room. No shadows moved. There was no noise, not the sound of footsteps or of someone breathing; still, she felt unsettled. She slid, with her back against the wall, into her office, where she shut and locked her door even while telling herself that she was being ridiculous.

  She sat in her chair and went to take a restorative sip from her coffee, when her phone chimed, causing her to jump and shriek and spill coffee on her pants.

  She snatched up her phone. It was Robbie.

  “Hello,” she answered, relieved to have someone to talk to, as it made her feel less alone.

  “Hello, pet, do me a favor and unlock the front doors,” he said.

  “You’re here?”

  “Right out front,” he said.

  “Oh, thank God,” Lindsey muttered. She hurried out of her office and dashed across the lobby to get to the main entrance.

  “What was that?” he asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Nothing,” she said. She waved at him through the glass door. She ended the call and knelt down to unlock the doors. They whooshed opened, and Robbie stood there, smiling at her. Lindsey grabbed him by the hand, as if he might try to run, and dragged him into the building.

  “What’s got you all in a fizz?” he asked.

  “I’m not,” she protested. “Okay, it’s just a teeny bit unnerving to be here by myself after last night.”

  Robbie glanced from side to side. “It is eerily quiet, isn’t it?”

  They both stood still, listening. The silence was thick, as if weighted down by the tragedy that had occurred.

  “Ms. Norris?”

  “Ah!” Lindsey started and whirled back around to find a man in a hazmat suit standing in the doorway.

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’m John Solis with the cleaning company,” he said. He was covered from neck to toe in yellow coveralls and was holding a face mask in one hand.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No, not at all. Sorry, I’m a bit jumpy,” she said.

  He gave her a sympathetic look. “Completely understandable. Can I bring my crew in and get started?”

  “Sure, I’ll walk you over to the . . . er . . . area,” she said.

  They turned to walk to the stacks when there was a shout from outside. Lindsey turned back to see Kili Peters, a reporter, racing toward the front door with a cameraman at her back.

  “No, just no,” Lindsey said.

  She hurried forward, trying to shut the door, but the rest of the cleanup crew arrived at the same time, and she couldn’t shut out Kili without shutting them out as well.

  “Lindsey, don’t you do it. Don’t make me go through the mayor!” Kili shoute
d.

  Lindsey’s shoulders slumped. Kili was a petite, blond, buxom reporter that Lindsey had tangled with before. Kili, pronounced just like the fruit but with an l instead of a w, was known for latching onto a story and sensationalizing it to the point of no return. She had reported on events surrounding the town of Briar Creek and the library before, and it never went well for them. She had a vindictive streak, and shutting her out would likely only make her even more doggedly determined to report on them in a negative way.

  “Fine,” Lindsey said. She looked at Robbie. “Keep her here and do not say anything.”

  With that, she gestured to the cleaners to follow her and led them back to the area where Olive had been found. The sight of the dark stain under the stark fluorescent lighting made her breath catch and her heart pound. Would there ever come a time when she wouldn’t walk amongst these shelves and feel sick? She doubted it.

  “If you need anything, Mr. Solis, I’ll be up front,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll take care of this for you. More than likely we’ll have to remove the existing carpet and put in a fresh piece.”

  “That’s probably for the best. Thank you.”

  They nodded at each other, and Lindsey turned and hurried back to the front, hoping she could do whatever damage control would be required to keep Kili from slandering the library or hampering them with a slew of bad press that would take months for her to counter. She remembered the first time she and Kili had tangled. Lindsey had been fairly new to the small town and found her library in the center of what was little more than a smear campaign. It had been a learning experience she could have lived without.

  “Kili,” she said as she approached. She noticed that the reporter was staring at Robbie, looking starstruck. Maybe they could get out of this alive after all.

  “Lindsey,” Kili said. She tossed her hair and tugged on the lapels of the jacket that framed her figure to its best advantage.

  “Why are you here?” Lindsey asked.

  “Duh.” Kili looked at her as if she was too stupid to live and gestured in the direction where the cleaners had gone.

  “Fine, let me rephrase that.” Lindsey blew out a breath to give herself a moment to gather her scattered patience. “What did you hope to learn here today?”

  “Learn?” Kili blinked at her.

  “You’re an investigative reporter,” Lindsey said. “Aren’t you supposed to be digging into Olive’s life, looking for clues, tracking down witnesses, interviewing suspects?”

  “Yeah, that, that’s what I’m doing,” Kili said. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and used the reflective surface to check her teeth and hair.

  “Over my dead body,” Lindsey muttered.

  “Really?” Robbie asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s go, Micah,” Kili said to the cameraman.

  The burly man, wearing a headset, hefted the camera onto his shoulder and aimed it in their direction.

  “In five, four, three . . .” Micah counted down.

  Lindsey had no intention of being interviewed, and she dove for cover. When Robbie stood there, looking ready for his close-up, she grabbed him by the arm and yanked him down behind a waist-high shelving unit with her.

  “Two . . .”

  “You are not answering any questions on behalf of the library,” she hissed.

  “One. And rolling,” Micah said.

  “But the camera,” Robbie protested.

  “No.”

  “Cut!” Kili snapped. She stomped forward and leaned over the shelving unit to peer down at Lindsey and Robbie where they squatted. “Very mature.”

  Lindsey leaned to the right to glance past her. When she saw that the red light on the top of the camera was off, she rose to standing. Robbie followed her.

  “Sorry, but I’m not giving an interview right now,” she said. “I would have to get permission from the mayor—you know that.”

  “Yeah, I suppose, if you’re determined to follow the rules. Plus, you really need to do something with this,” Kili said. She used her index finger to make a circle around her own face. Lindsey took this to mean that her lack of makeup was frowned upon. Kili turned to Robbie and batted her false eyelashes at him. “How about you, big guy?”

  “Uh . . . well . . . I . . .” Robbie hedged.

  “No. He doesn’t work here,” Lindsey said. “He can’t speak for the library.”

  “No?” Kili asked. She sidled closer to Robbie. “How about as a resident then? You could be my man on the street.”

  Robbie tipped his head to the side as if considering this. Kili waved her hand behind her back at the cameraman to get ready as she pressed herself against Robbie’s side.

  “Robbie, don’t—” Lindsey began, but Kili interrupted her.

  “Just think what a refreshing angle it would make,” Kili said. “World-famous, stunningly handsome heartthrob tells the viewers what it’s like to live in the murderous shoreline town of Briar Creek with a lame-duck chief of police.”

  A smile spread across Robbie’s face as he got caught up in her description of his role.

  “Yeah, let’s hear your thoughts on the lame duck,” a voice said from behind Micah.

  Lindsey turned to see Emma standing there in her chief of police uniform with her arms crossed over her chest, which was probably a good thing, as it kept her from using her Taser on Robbie.

  “Em! You’re here.” Robbie’s eyebrows shot up in alarm.

  “And just in time,” she said. She pushed past Micah and moved into Kili’s personal space. “Back away from my boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend?” Kili looked outraged, and then the reporter in her became intrigued. “The actor and the officer— Oh, this is delicious. Do tell and don’t leave out any details. Did you meet when she nabbed you for a drunk and disorderly?”

  “No!” Robbie protested. “What’s sort of bloke do you think I am?”

  “Enough,” Emma said. She moved forward, forcing Kili and her cameraman back until they were on the outside of the library looking in. “There will be an official press conference at the station later today. Any questions you have will be answered then.”

  “But—”

  Emma manually pulled the doors shut and then crouched down to lock them.

  “How did she manage that?” Robbie asked Lindsey. “We couldn’t scrape those barnacles off for the life of us.”

  “Power of the badge,” she said.

  “Ah.” He nodded.

  “The cleaners are here?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah, they’ve already started,” Lindsey said.

  “How are you holding up?”

  Lindsey shrugged. She didn’t have it in her to force a smile or lie and say she was fine. She wasn’t.

  “That’s why I came by,” Emma said. She looked over her shoulder at Kili and Micah who were stomping back toward their news van. “And just in time, apparently.”

  “You know I would have had your back, love, don’t you?” Robbie asked.

  “I believe you would have tried,” Emma said. “But reporters, especially that one, are tricky. This is an ongoing investigation, so I would prefer it if you direct any inquiries to me.”

  “Absolutely,” Lindsey said.

  “Sure thing,” Robbie agreed. He studied Lindsey and then glanced out the door. When the news van pulled away, he put his arm around Emma’s shoulders and pulled her into his side and swiftly kissed her hair. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better,” she said. “The mayor is on my behind to solve this case, and despite the two hundred plus people that were here last night, I’ve got nothing substantial.”

  She glanced at Lindsey, and Lindsey knew she was thinking that she had nothing substantial except Paula. Lindsey stared her down. Her clerk was not involve
d in this. She knew it all the way into the marrow of her bones.

  There must have been something on her face that waved Emma off, because she pushed away from Robbie and said, “I’m just going to check in with the cleaning crew.”

  Lindsey and Robbie watched her go.

  “All right, spill it,” Robbie said.

  “What?”

  “What, what? The tension between you two is so dramatic it comes with its own soundtrack,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Lindsey considered him for a minute. Could she tell him? Should she tell him? No, she couldn’t. He was involved with Emma romantically, so as far as Lindsey was concerned, when it came to confiding in him, his loyalty was compromised.

  Besides, she wasn’t getting involved in this situation, and if she told him what was happening, he would take it as a sign that she needed to investigate, and he would badger her until she gave in. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Little tip, love,” Robbie said. He looked disappointed in her, which bothered Lindsey more than she wanted to admit. “When you lie to someone, you should really maintain eye contact.”

  He walked away in the same direction Emma had taken, leaving Lindsey alone by the front door, wondering how many relationships she was going to ruin by refusing to get involved.

  12

  Lindsey spent the following Monday afternoon sitting at the reference desk, wading through the online time slips for her staff to make sure they were filled out correctly before she forwarded them over to the human resources department at town hall.

  Ann Marie, the library assistant who usually manned the desk, was on break. Lindsey didn’t mind covering for her, as she felt that it kept her reference skills sharp.

  She had just finished signing hard copies of a couple of leave slips and sealed them in an interoffice envelope when Mr. Chesterton, a native Creeker, approached the reference desk.