Murder Past Due (14 page)

“Just looking at this box of books,” I said. “I was thinking about buying one. I haven’t read it yet.”

Jordan’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as she looked from Patty to me. “These aren’t for sale.”

“Then what are you going to do with them?” I thought that was a reasonable question. She could surely sell them for a lot more than list price—books signed by a famous mystery writer the day he was murdered. Talk about collectible.

“I meant they’re all spoken for,” Jordan said in a more conciliatory tone. “They’re all special orders.” She turned and reached for the box.

“You know, I saw Godfrey yesterday morning,” I said. “I know he had plans for lunch. Was that when he signed them?”

Jordan stepped back from the box and glared at me.

Patty watched avidly, her eyes going back and forth between her boss and me.

“No, it wasn’t,” Jordan said, her face flushing. “If you must know, he signed them yesterday afternoon. I went by his hotel room.”

“Gosh, then maybe you were the last person to see him alive.” Patty could hardly contain her glee. “I bet the police will want to talk to you.”

Jordan, in the act of reaching for the box again, stumbled against the counter. When she turned, her face was dead white. For a moment I thought she was going to faint, but she rallied. She pulled a high-seated stool over and sat down on it. “What happened?”

“You haven’t heard?” I was surprised. She was probably the one person in Athena who hadn’t. “Godfrey was found dead in his hotel room last night. The sheriff’s department is treating it as a suspicious death.”

“Oh dear Lord.” Jordan muttered the words over and over.

“Can I get you some coffee or something?” Patty, suddenly contrite, appeared anxious.

Jordan waved her away. “No, just go do your job for once.”

Patty’s sulky expression didn’t bode well for her dedication to the task, but she went away quietly.

“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned by how shaken Jordan still seemed to be.

Diesel, sensing her distress, stood up on his hind legs and stretched his right paw out, touching her thigh. Jordan gave him a shaky smile and a rub on the head.

“If she ever does penance for anything, it’ll be for that double-jointed tongue of hers.” Jordan paused and breathed deeply. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. It’s a shock, hearing news like that. So completely unexpected.” She continued rubbing Diesel’s head.

“You really had no idea?” Was she a consummate actress, only pretending to be stunned?

Jordan shook her head. “No, why should I? I never make it to the ten o’clock news. I’m always too tired. And nobody called me, either.” She snorted. “Though I’m surprised Patty didn’t.”

“Was Godfrey a particular friend of yours?” I wasn’t sure how she would react. This might be my last visit to her bookstore if I wasn’t careful, and I certainly wouldn’t like that. “Sorry, but you seem pretty shaken up.”

“More than a bookstore owner should be for a writer who hadn’t deigned to enter her premises in five years?” Jordan laughed, a bitter sound. Diesel sat back on his haunches and stared up at her.

“I suppose so, yes. If you put it that way.” Perhaps I should have excused myself and gotten the heck out of there, but curiosity kept me.

“I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not sorry the bastard’s dead.” Jordan stood up, and Diesel scooted back beside me. “He embarrassed the hell out of me by not showing up here—twice—for advertized events. Not to mention the money I lost on returning hundreds of copies of his books—books I could easily have sold. But he didn’t have to balls to show his face in here.”

“That’s too bad. No wonder you were pissed at him.” I didn’t know what else to say. The passion in her voice startled me. Right now, she sounded angry enough to have killed him.

But anger this intense because of business?

Or was there something more personal behind it, as Patty claimed?

I couldn’t ask her that outright, or I really would be banned from the bookstore. At the moment I couldn’t think of a subtle way of getting at the information either.

“Now, is there something I can help you with?” Jordan became very businesslike.

“I would still like a copy of Godfrey’s latest book.” I nodded at the box of signed copies. “If those aren’t available, an unsigned copy will do.”

Jordan stared at the box for a moment before reaching into it and pulling out a book. “It’s okay. You can buy one.”

“Thank you.” I went around to the front of the counter, Diesel at my heels. As Jordan rang up my purchase and bagged it, I pulled out my debit card.

The transaction finished, Jordan returned my card and handed me the bag. “Thank you very much.” She didn’t smile the way she usually did, but she also didn’t look like she never wanted to see me in her store again. That was a relief.

“Come on, Diesel. Got to finish our errands.” I flashed Jordan a smile as the cat and I headed for the door, but the bookstore owner had already turned away.

Outside the store, I paused. Diesel sat down and looked up at me. I gazed back at him, lost in thought.

Why had Jordan changed her mind and let me buy one of the signed copies?

Should I take it as some sort of bribe? Because the book would probably soon be worth a lot more than the $26.95 plus tax I paid for it.

Or was it Jordan’s way of telling me she had nothing to do with Godfrey’s death?

Short of asking her point-blank, I didn’t see any way to answer those questions for now.

Diesel warbled at me, bringing me out of my wool-gathering. “Time to move on. I know.”

I put the book in the car, and Diesel and I walked down the block to the bakery.

Helen Louise Brady, another of my Athena High School classmates, had opened a patisserie and café a few years before I moved back. It quickly thrived, patronized by many of the college faculty and students, and plenty of townspeople as well. Helen Louise’s pastries and cakes were sinfully delicious, and I never could resist popping in for something to take home.

Another point in the bakery’s favor was that Helen Louise didn’t mind having Diesel come in with me. The first few times I took him in some of her regulars raised their eyebrows, but Helen Louise had been known to ban customers who annoyed her. If she said it was okay for Diesel to be there, no one was going to argue with her.

Rake-thin and nearly six feet tall, her hair jet black, Helen Louise beamed with joy when she spotted Diesel. “Ah,
mon chat très beau
.” Helen Louise often lapsed into French. She had lived in Paris for nearly ten years before coming back to Athena and to open the patisserie. “Let me find something for you.”

I sometimes marveled that Diesel didn’t weigh fifty pounds, so many people wanted to feed him. I kept an eye, though, on his little treats, and at home we had play sessions designed to help him burn off the extra calories.

Helen Louise came around the counter with some creamy frosting on her fingers and bent to let Diesel lick it off. He purred, and Helen Louise smiled again.

“Thank you.” I smiled back. “I know Diesel thanks you, too. He’s going to have to run an extra lap or two on the stairs at home, but I’m sure it’s worth it.”

“I should hope so.” Helen Louise laughed. She went behind the counter to a sink and washed her hands. As she dried them, she asked, “And what can I get for you today, Charlie?”

She made a wicked chocolate gateau, and I pointed to one in the glass case. “That will do quite nicely. And I’ll have to run up and down the stairs a few times myself.” I grinned.

“
Quel dommage
. But every mouthful a little heaven on the tongue.” Helen Louise expertly boxed my selection and rang it up at the register.

“
Oui, certainement
.” I knew some French too, and Helen Louise laughed.

“Come again soon,” she said. “You too, Charlie.”

I grinned as I led Diesel to the door. Helen Louise was charming, and her personality was one ingredient in her success.

I put the gateau carefully on the backseat of the car, while Diesel sprang into the front. My two most important errands of the morning accomplished, I thought Diesel and I might drop by the public library for a few minutes. It was only a few blocks away, on the route home.

I was about to back out of the parking space when my cell phone rang. I shifted back to park and pulled the phone out of my shirt pocket. Glancing at the number on the display, I frowned. Someone from the college was calling, but I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello, this is Charlie Harris.”

“Hey, Charlie, it’s Rick. How you doing?” Rick Tackett was operations manager for the college library.

“Doing fine, and you?”

“Pretty busy,” Rick said. “Got a big delivery for you, and I wondered if you wanted it up in your office maybe? Or somewhere else?”

“How big?” I asked, puzzled. I wasn’t expecting anything.

“Fifty-four boxes,” Rick said. “Pretty heavy. Maybe somebody’s papers or something.”

Papers?

For a moment I couldn’t remember any recent agreement to take someone’s papers for the archive.

Then it hit me.

Could these be Godfrey Priest’s papers?

Who else could the papers have belonged to? Godfrey had estimated he had fifty or sixty boxes of papers and books to give to the college archive.

But when had he shipped them?

“Charlie, you still there?”

Rick’s voice brought me back to the conversation. “Yeah, I’m still here. Just a bit stunned, that’s all.”

Rick chuckled into my ear. “Yeah, it’s a huge shipment. And pretty heavy, too. Probably cost a coupla thousand bucks, I bet.”

“If they belonged to whom I think they did, he had plenty of money.” Yeah, the papers were Godfrey’s. He must have called someone and had them shipped right after our conversation yesterday.

“Must be nice.” Rick laughed again. “Anyway, they’re here on the loading dock. Oh, and there’s a letter, too.” There was silence for a moment. When Rick spoke again his tone was somber. “Return address says it’s from Godfrey Priest. I heard he died last night.”

“Yes, he did.” What should I do with Godfrey’s boxes? The sheriff’s department would probably impound them if they knew about them, though I couldn’t imagine what use they would be to Kanesha Berry. Technically they were now the property of Athena College, although I didn’t think Godfrey had signed anything to that effect yet.

Maybe there was something in his letter that stated his intentions.

“I’d better come over there. I’ll meet you on the loading dock in a few minutes.”

“Sure,” Rick said. “I’ll be here.”

I ended the call and stuck the phone back in my pocket. Diesel butted my elbow with his head.

“No, I didn’t forget about you,” I told him. “But we’ve got to take a detour. Sit.”

Diesel sat in the passenger seat. I’d been meaning to get him one of those pet car seats, but since I mostly just drive around town, and pretty slowly at that, I kept putting it off.

About six minutes later I pulled into the loading dock of Hawksworth Library. Built in the 1920s and added to several times over the past eight decades, it was named for an illustrious president of the college who had served right after the Civil War. Altogether it occupied half a block of the street on the north side of the antebellum mansion that housed the archive and some administrative offices.

Rick Tackett, a friendly, stocky fireplug of a man about ten years my senior, stood on the loading dock beside a pallet of boxes.

I rolled the front windows down a little before shutting off the car. “You stay in the car, boy. I won’t be long.”

Diesel yawned at me and curled up on the seat. Sometimes, like now, he was remarkably obedient. Other times he was as headstrong as a Brahma bull. I never knew how he’d react to a command.

Or a suggestion, from a feline point of view.

I climbed up onto the loading dock and shook Rick’s extended hand.

“Morning, Charlie,” he said. He nodded at the neatly stacked and shrink-wrapped boxes. “Here’s the letter.” He pulled it from his back pocket.

The envelope, made of heavyweight paper, screamed
expensive
, as did the gold-embossed return address bearing Godfrey Priest’s name—or rather, “Godfrey Priest Enterprises Inc.” I guess being a big bestseller was something like running a business.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll just open this and have a quick look, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure thing,” Rick said. “Here.” He handed me a penknife.

I took it and slit open the envelope with the blade and returned the knife to Rick. I extracted the contents, two pages of heavy bond paper.

The top sheet, bearing last Wednesday’s date, was a letter from one Gail Enderby, apparently Godfrey’s administrative assistant. Ms. Enderby explained that she had prepared the boxes for shipping per her boss’s instructions. Each box, she said, contained an inventory of its contents, and box number one—I glanced over at the pallet, and the boxes I could see did bear numbers—contained a master inventory.

With the amount of time all this would have taken to organize, Godfrey had evidently been planning this donation for several months.

The second sheet was a letter from Godfrey himself, dated the day before his assistant’s note. He proclaimed his intent to donate his papers to the Athena College archive. He didn’t mention giving any money along with the papers to cover the costs of processing and housing the collection, but at least this letter ought to give the college clear ownership.

“Good news?” Rick asked when I looked up from the letters.

“Yes. Now I feel like I can answer your question about what to do with these boxes.”

“Great. Where do you want them? Over in your building?”

I eyed the pallet, trying to estimate how much space I had in one of the storage rooms allotted to the archive. “Could you have the boxes numbered one through ten put in the office? I think the rest of them will fit in the archive storage room.”