Murder Past Due (24 page)

“By the way,” I said, feeling more uneasy by the second, “did you know that Godfrey had a half brother? It’s Rick Tackett. Do you know him?”

“I don’t know him,” Kanesha said. “But I knew of the relationship. You might find this hard to believe, but I did make an effort to find out as much as I could about the victim and his family right off the bat.”

“Sorry,” I said, abashed.

She simply stared at me, and I tried not to squirm. Feeling like a delinquent ten-year-old was a new experience for me.

“For now we will move these boxes into the storeroom with the others, and I will seal the room until I can send someone here to pick them up and bring them down to the sheriff’s department.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” I wasn’t going to argue. If the college for some reason had a problem with this, I would deal with it later.

I had an inspiration. I found some of the cotton gloves I used to handle rare books and offered her a pair. She accepted them with a nod, and then we moved the boxes from my office down to the storeroom.

Diesel, very curious about where we were going with the boxes, followed us back and forth until we completed the move.

“Since we’re here,” I said, waving a hand to indicate the storeroom, “why don’t you have a quick look at some of the contracts? That would answer one question pretty quickly.”

“Meaning you want to know, so you want me to do it right now and tell you before these boxes are removed.” Kanesha didn’t smile, but I could have sworn she was the tiniest bit amused. That was a surprise.

“Well, yes,” I said.

“Go get the inventory and the box of disks, and I’ll stay here,” Kanesha said. “I’ll have a look at the contracts.”

I nodded and went back to my office to retrieve the inventory. Diesel remained with Kanesha. He was prowling around the boxes as I left the room. I thought Kanesha might object. She ignored him, however.

I came back with the box of disks and the inventory. “The contracts are in box twelve,” I said. “I looked already.” I set the box down on the floor.

We both turned to hunt for box twelve. Kanesha spotted it first, at the bottom of a stack of four. I helped her move the three on top, and she pulled box twelve out of the way.

“It’s pretty light,” she said, frowning up at me.

She squatted down and removed the lid.

It was empty.

If I could have crawled into that empty box and pulled the lid over me, I would have. Kanesha’s expression was implacable enough to stop a charging rhino in its tracks.

She stood after replacing the lid on the box. She walked out into the hall, and I fancied I could see the anger in every step she took. She turned and waited for Diesel and me to join her in the hall.

“Please lock the door,” she said.

When I had done so she held out her hand for the keys. “I’m sorry,” I said as I complied.

She didn’t respond. Instead she walked down the hall to my office, unlocked the door, and stood pointedly by the door. Diesel followed me as I went down the hall and into the office.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll return your keys then.” She headed for the stairs.

I went to my desk and sat down. I had really screwed things up, and Kanesha had every right to be furious with me. I had let myself get too caught up in the situation and hadn’t thought things through clearly enough. I wasn’t one of the Hardy Boys, happily assisting my famous detective father.

As a basically law-abiding citizen, however, I had interpreted what I saw as my civic duty to assist the deputy in her inquiry a little too broadly. I did think I had helped her in some ways. How long would it have taken her to find the letters on those disks, for example? But did that outweigh my blunder in allowing someone to steal a whole boxful—if not more—of Godfrey’s papers?

To distract myself from spinning mental wheels to no effect, I turned to my computer to check my e-mail. Diesel, seeming to sense my inner turmoil, kept rubbing against my legs and purring. I scratched his head and, as always, that made me feel better. Seeing his pleasure from the attention was an effective calming agent.

After a couple of minutes of scratching, Diesel pulled his head away and climbed into his window seat. Still purring he settled down for a siesta while I tried to focus on work.

As I read through my e-mail, I heard Kanesha return, but I didn’t look up from my task. Some minutes later I was aware that she entered my office, and I swiveled in my chair to face her.

“Here are your keys,” she said as she placed them on my desk. “I’ve put an official seal on the room, but I’ll be sending someone here within the hour to remove those boxes to the sheriff’s department. If you will have a receipt ready, I’d appreciate it.”

I glanced at her face. Her expression had lost some of the rigidity it had earlier, and I relaxed a bit myself. Maybe she wasn’t going to bless me out after all.

“I’ll be glad to do that,” I said.

“Fine.” She glared at me a moment. “I realize that you had good intentions, Mr. Harris, and generally we appreciate cooperation from the public. But you stepped too far over the line. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much I regret not notifying you right away about Godfrey’s papers. I can only hope this won’t cause serious problems for your investigation.”

She listened, but when I finished, she simply nodded and walked out.

After that I tried to focus on my e-mail, but it was no use. I was still too unsettled by what had transpired between Kanesha and me. I glanced at my watch. It was almost four-thirty.
Might as well get out of here.

“Come on, boy, time to go,” I told Diesel as I shut down my computer.

Yawning, he sat up and stretched. He stood patiently, as always, for me to put him in his harness, and a few minutes later we were ready to go. The afternoon was cool but sunny when we left the building. During the brief walk home, I thought about what I might do this evening.

A quiet night at home would be just the thing. That’s what I told myself, but a little niggling voice kept insisting that there was something else I could do.

Teresa Farmer, the librarian I mentioned to Kanesha Berry, was usually at the public library until six on Friday evenings. I had time to go over there and have a quiet chat with her and find out what she might know about local writers’ groups.

This would mean treading on Kanesha’s toes again, but I knew I could trust Teresa’s discretion. If I told her why I was asking, she would not talk about it to anyone until the deputy asked for her assistance.

When you want something, you can generally come up with the reasoning to justify it, I have discovered over the years. Even when you know you shouldn’t.

At home all was quiet. I let Diesel have time to use the litter box and eat something before heading to the public library in the car. I contemplated leaving him home, but if I walked through the front door of the library without him, I would have to look at any number of disappointed faces. Diesel was very popular there.

I pulled into the parking lot at the library a few minutes after five. Diesel walked ahead of me, pulling a bit on the leash, eager to go inside. He enjoyed the public library because of the attention he always received.

The first few minutes inside we spent accepting greetings from some of the children who were there, not to mention the adults on the library staff. Teresa was not at the reference desk, and I was afraid for a moment that she wasn’t at work today.

But a few minutes later she appeared from the office area behind the reference desk, alerted no doubt by the increase in noise. A petite dynamo a few years my senior, Teresa smiled broadly when she discovered the reason for the noise.

As soon as I could I extracted Diesel from his cadre of young admirers and led him behind the reference desk where Teresa waited. She had three cats of her own, and she was as fond of Diesel as anyone here.

“Charlie, what are you doing here? This is an unexpected pleasure,” Teresa said. “And Diesel, how are you?” She squatted in front of the cat in order to give him some attention, rubbing his head affectionately.

Diesel purred and warbled while I explained.

“I came to see you,” I said. “I need your help with something.”

Teresa stood. “Sure, come on back to my office.”

Diesel and I followed her. Teresa was the head of reference for the library as well as the assistant director. She also supervised the library’s few volunteers, and I had worked closely with her for almost three years now.

She sat down behind her desk and motioned for me to take a seat across from her. I did so and unhooked Diesel’s leash from his harness. He padded around the desk and climbed up into Teresa’s lap. When he sat up his head was actually a bit higher than hers, and I had to smile at the sight.

“What can I do for you, Charlie?” Teresa said as she rubbed Diesel under the chin.

“It has to do with Godfrey Priest,” I said.

Startled, Teresa looked at me. “That’s odd,” she said.

“How so?”

“I had a call just a few minutes ago from Detective Berry,” she said. “She’s coming in tomorrow morning to talk to me about something to do with Godfrey. She didn’t say what, exactly, just that she needed some information and someone had suggested me to her. Was that you?”

Kanesha had acted more quickly than I expected. At least she had accepted my suggestion, I thought.

“Yes, it was,” I said. “I’m being really naughty in coming to talk to you before she does, but I’m letting my curiosity get the better of me, I’m afraid.”

Teresa laughed. “I promise not to rat on you. What is it you and Deputy Berry want to know?”

“Information on local writers’ groups,” I said. “If there are any, I figured you’d be bound to know.”

“Thanks,” Teresa said. “We do try to keep track of any community activities to be prepared for the inevitable questions.”

“I know,” I said, grinning. “I’ll never forget the time I got a call from a woman—this was in Houston—who was looking for information on an organization for cats.” I had to laugh, just thinking about it.

“What’s so funny about that?” Teresa asked.

“She had heard about a group that knitted socks for cats, she said, and she wanted to join them,” I said. I chuckled again.

Teresa joined in my laughter. “I can’t imagine one of my cats allowing me to put socks on her or him. They’d have a fit.”

“I thought it was pretty funny,” I said. “But of course I couldn’t tell her that. So I found her the name of a contact person for a local cat fanciers’ group. I never heard whether she found what she was looking for.”

“At least you gave her something,” Teresa said, still smiling. “Now, about writers’ groups. Yes, I can think of several. There’s one group that’s been meeting here at the library for about twenty years. They’re all poets, though, and somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for. Not if it has something to do with Godfrey Priest.”

“Right,” I said. “I want to know if there was a group he was ever a part of, or maybe whether he spoke to local groups when he came back to Athena.”

“And you can’t tell me exactly why you want this information?”

“No, I can’t,” I said with regret. “You don’t mind, I hope.”

“I can live with it,” Teresa said wryly. “Okay. Godfrey Priest and writers’ groups.” She frowned as she thought. By now Diesel had settled down in her lap, his head against her chest as he purred in deep contentment. Teresa stroked his head gently.

I kept quiet while she dredged through her memory banks. She had amazing recall—one reason she was such a terrific reference librarian. If there were something to find, she’d find it.

“It has to be at least twenty years ago now,” Teresa said. “Godfrey Priest hasn’t spoken at this library in at least that long. He did participate in a fund-raiser we had about seven years ago, spoke at a Friends of the Library dinner, but that was it.”

“What about twenty years ago?” I said, prompting her gently when she fell silent again.

“There was a group that met here occasionally back then,” Teresa said. “Seven or eight people, I think. They weren’t together that long, or at least they didn’t ask to use our meeting room for long. They could have continued meeting somewhere else.”

“Do you recall who was in the group?” I kept my fingers crossed.

“I can do better than that,” Teresa said with a smile. “I can show you a picture of them.” She scratched Diesel’s head. “But you’re going to have to let me up.” Diesel sat up, butted his head against her chin, and jumped to the floor at her gentle urging.

“A picture would be great,” I said as Diesel came around the desk to sit by my chair.

Teresa got up from her desk. “I’ll be back in a minute. What I want is in one of the filing cabinets behind the reference desk.”

Diesel and I waited quietly for her return. She was gone less than five minutes.

When she returned she handed me a folder. I examined the label: “Library Annual Reports.”

“I put the relevant one on top,” Teresa said as she resumed her seat behind the desk.

I extracted it from the folder and laid the rest aside on top of her desk. The report consisted of only a few pages, and it was on page four that I found the photograph Teresa wanted me to see. It was rather small, and the caption only said, “Writers’ Group Meets with Local Novelist.”

In the center of a group of six people was Godfrey Priest—looking much younger and much less successful than he did when I saw him a few days ago. That was only natural. This picture was taken before he hit it big.

I examined the faces of the others in the group. I recognized two of them right away, and I was stunned as I put the names to the faces.