Read It and Weep (A Library Lover's Mystery) (17 page)

“Beth, what are you doing?” Lindsey asked.

Beth had dragged a ladder out of the supply cupboard and was dusting off the tops of the bookshelves.

“Cleaning,” Beth said.

“I can see that,” Lindsey said. “Let me be more clear: Why are you cleaning up there right now?”

Beth bit her lip and looked down at Lindsey. “I’m nervous. You know I always clean when I’m nervous.”

It was true. When they had roomed together during graduate school, Lindsey had found Beth scouring their oven in the middle of the night in an attempt to manage her nerves over final exams.

“I appreciate your anxiety,” Lindsey said. “But do you think you could clean something closer to the ground? It won’t help the play if you fall and break something.”

“Oh, good point,” Beth said. She carefully climbed down the ladder. “Speaking of falling, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fi—” Lindsey had been about to say fine, but she thought better of it. “I’m okay.”

“Just okay?” Beth asked.

Lindsey studied her friend. Her big eyes were sparkling with bright-eyed optimism. “What are you talking about? What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

“N
othing. Well, I just thought maybe you and Sully . . .” Beth trailed off. “No?”

Lindsey thought about the moment last night in front of the police station when she had almost kissed him. She felt her face grow warm, but she refused to acknowledge it.

“Why would Sully and I . . . ?” she began but Beth interrupted her.

“Because it was such a daring rescue,” Beth cried. “There you were dangling off the balcony. Everyone was yelling and panicking and then Sully came dashing up the aisle with the mattress. He threw it down and then told you to let go and you did. And just like that, he scooped you up and carried you out of harm’s way.”

Beth clasped her hands together over her chest. She looked like a character right out of a Marion Chesney Regency novel.

“More like he shoved me and then fell after me,” Lindsey said. “Not to quibble.”

Beth gave her an exasperated look. “That man saved your life.”

“I know,” Lindsey said. “But that doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, come on,” Beth said. She looked like she wanted to strangle Lindsey. “How can it not mean that he still has feelings for you?”

Lindsey stared at her friend. Did it mean that? She was afraid to hope.

“So, are you really nervous for the performance tonight?” Lindsey asked in an abrupt change of subject. “How nervous? Throw-up nervous?”

“Okay, that’s mean,” Beth said. “You know I’m nervous.”

“I’m sorry.” Lindsey sighed. “I just don’t want to talk about Sully and me and whatever is or isn’t happening, which I have no idea about anyway.”

Beth considered her for a moment. “All right, I forgive you. And yes, I’m throw-up nervous.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lindsey said and gave her friend a sympathetic hug. “You’re going to be fabulous. No worries.”

“I don’t know,” Beth said. “Everyone is really wigged out. We don’t even know if Dylan will show up and play Puck or if his parents will forbid it. Poor Violet; if I were her, I’d have had a stroke by now.”

“Violet is a pro,” Lindsey said. “She’ll be okay, and the play will be great. You’ll see.”

“Hey, you two, have you noticed that Milton is always here?” Ann Marie, one of their part-time employees, stopped beside them. She was pushing a truck full of new titles to be shelved.

“Well, he does teach chess club and he’s on the board,” Lindsey said.

“Oh, I know he’s always been a regular,” Ann Marie said. “But now, it’s the two of them all the time.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the circulation desk.

Ms. Cole and Milton were standing across the desk from each other speaking in low voices, but Lindsey recognized the cadence as being the particular iambic pentameter verse of Shakespeare.

“I imagine once opening night is behind them, they’ll settle down,” Lindsey said.

“I don’t know,” Ann Marie said. “Performing in the theater brings people together.” She gave Lindsey a meaningful look. “For that matter, working behind the scenes brings people together, too.”

“Oh, no.” Lindsey shook her head. “Don’t you start.”

“Start what?” Jessica Gallo, their other part-timer, asked as she joined them.

“Nothing,” Lindsey said. She gave Beth and Ann Marie a look. “And I do mean nothing.”

Jessica glanced at the three of them and shrugged. Then she turned to Lindsey and asked, “So, as to the rumor about you and Sully getting back together, would you care to confirm or deny?”

“Oh, good grief!” Lindsey rolled her eyes. “‘Upon my tongue continual slanders ride . . . something, something, I forget . . . Stuffing the ears of man with false reports.’”

“
King Henry IV
,” Jessica said. “Nicely played, even though you forgot the middle.”

“So, no confirmation then?” Ann Marie asked.

“No,” Lindsey said.

Jessica and Ann Marie exchanged a look before they went back to their stations.

“But if there was something to report, you’d tell me, right?” Beth asked. “I mean, I’m your best friend.”

“Yes, I’d tell you—maybe,” Lindsey said.

“Nice.” Beth gave her a withering look.

Lindsey said nothing. Did she still care about Sully? No doubt. But she couldn’t deny that she had been surprised to find that her feelings for Robbie had been deeper than she realized.

The thought that she would never see his charming grin or the twinkle in his eye when he teased her made her chest feel heavy and tight. She completely understood why Charlene and Violet had cared so much for him. He was an unstoppable force, much like the character Puck that he had played so well.

“Hello?” Beth waved her hand in front of Lindsey’s face. “Are you in there?”

Lindsey shook her head. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“That Jessica is looking swamped at the reference desk,” Beth said. She gave Lindsey a curious look, and Lindsey knew it was because she was usually much more on top of what was happening in the library around her.

“On it,” Lindsey said.

She left Beth with a wave and made her way across the large room to the reference area. She was relieved to have something to do to keep her mind off of Robbie’s death and Sully and whatever had happened between them last night, which she feared had been a reaction to a near-death experience and not a sign that they were reconciling. Then again, Sully never said how he was feeling, so how could she possibly tell?

“May I help who’s next?” she asked as she stepped in behind the desk with Jessica, who gave her a relieved smile.

Mrs. Duncan, who ran the local garden center, stepped up to Lindsey’s side of the desk while Jessica helped a man trying to find repair schematics for his car.

“Lindsey, I’ve got a problem,” Mrs. Duncan said.

She was dressed in her usual jeans and a flannel shirt over a long-sleeved T-shirt. She had no makeup on, and her brown hair was shoved up under its usual khaki, wide-brimmed hat. Stray wisps had managed to escape, and she had a smear of dirt on her cheek.

“What’s the problem?” Lindsey asked.

“I found this is my compost pile at the garden center, and I don’t know what it is,” Mrs. Duncan said. She dug into her large purse and pulled out a glass jar, which she plunked down on the counter.

“Ah!” The man looking for car repair information let loose a high-pitched shriek and he and Jessica jumped back from the desk.

Lindsey looked at the jar. Inside was a snake, a very large, coiled-up black snake.

“Is it dead?” She looked hopefully at Mrs. Duncan.

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Mrs. Duncan said. “I snatched him up behind the head and threw him in my pickle jar before he even knew he tumbled out of the bin.”

“Is that lid on tight?” Jessica asked.

“Oh yeah,” Mrs. Duncan said. “Not to worry. See?” She picked up the jar and gave the lid another good squeeze to show that it had gone as far as it could go.

Both the man and Jessica backed away from the desk, or more accurately, away from the snake.

“I think I have some manuals over here,” Jessica said.

“Lead the way,” the man said, sounding relieved.

Lindsey suppressed a smile, and turned to Mrs. Duncan. “Do you have a camera on your phone?”

“Yes, why?”

“Next time, you might want to just take a picture and bring that in.”

Mrs. Duncan watched Jessica and the man zip around the corner of the stacks away from them, and she nodded.

“Got it,” she said. “So, how do we find out what it is and if it’s poisonous?”

“It didn’t bite you, did it?” Lindsey asked.

She hoped the obvious answer was no and that if it had bitten her, Mrs. Duncan would have gone straight to an emergency room, but sometimes patrons surprised her. A few months back, they’d had a woman in who was obviously in labor, but she refused to go to the hospital until she checked out several baby name books.

“No, I’m quicker than any old snake,” Mrs. Duncan said with a laugh. “I just want to know if it’s safe to release it at the garden center or if I should set it free out in the woods.”

“All right,” Lindsey said. “Let’s see what I have.”

Lindsey did a quick catalog search. “How does a pamphlet called
Snakes in Connecticut
sound?”

“Perfect,” Mrs. Duncan said.

The computer indicated that it was in the library’s vertical file, which was a large, steel file cabinet full of all sorts of publications just like this one, all filed alphabetically by subject.

“If you’ll stay with the snake, I’ll be right back.”

Lindsey stepped out from behind the desk and crossed over to the expanded reference shelves where they kept the vertical file. She pulled out the
S
drawer and worked her way to Snakes. Sure enough, this pamphlet and two others were nestled in the manila envelope.

She took it out of its file and thumbed through it as she wandered back to the desk. She scanned the introduction and said, “Well, there are only fourteen species of snake in Connecticut and only two are venomous, the timber rattlesnake and the copperhead, so your odds are looking good.” She handed the pamphlet to Mrs. Duncan. “The authors, Jenny Dickson and Julie Victoria, included pictures of each.”

Mrs. Duncan flipped through the pages. “Aha! That’s him.” She slapped the pamphlet open on the counter and pointed to a black snake. “What do you think?”

Lindsey read the caption. “Eastern rat snake.” She continued reading. “But it says here that it would have a white chin. Yours is solid black.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Duncan turned the pamphlet back around and scanned more pictures. “Aha! Now I have it.” She lifted up the jar and stared at the underbelly of the snake. “Yup, that’s it for sure.”

Lindsey looked at the picture. It was another black snake but this one was called an Eastern racer. “Bluish belly?”

“See for yourself,” Mrs. Duncan said and she held the jar over Lindsey’s head so she could see.

“Yes, I think you have it,” Lindsey said. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I’ll release it in the field behind my house. I don’t want it scaring customers out of the garden center.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lindsey said. She jotted down on a piece of paper the number for the Connecticut wildlife office. “Here’s a number for you to call if you want more advice, and I’d recommend calling them before you release it just in case there is something else you need to know about this type of snake.”

“Thanks, Lindsey,” Mrs. Duncan said. “You were a big help.”

“Anytime,” Lindsey said. “But remember, next time a photo will do.”

Mrs. Duncan grinned. She put her jar back in her big bag and left the library.

“Is it gone?” Lindsey glanced behind her to see Jessica peering around the corner of the shelves.

“Yes, both the snake and Mrs. Duncan are gone,” Lindsey said. “It wasn’t poisonous.”

Lindsey held up the pamphlet to show Jessica, but she put her hand up and waved her off.

“I don’t even like pictures of snakes,” Jessica said.

“Oh, sorry,” Lindsey said. She went and re-filed the pamphlet. She stopped by the desk on her way back to her office. “Let me know if you need backup again.”

“Thanks,” Jessica said.

Lindsey took a few minutes to walk around the library and make sure everything was as it should be. The Internet-accessible computers were full. The cushy chairs in front of the newspaper and magazine racks were also full. There was a chess match going on in the corner, and several families occupied the children’s area.

She watched as two kids put on an impromptu show in the puppet theater while several toddlers were using the alphabet area rug to stack up the large oversized foam blocks. When a younger toddler came over and smacked down the towers, the cries of outrage were fierce but the mom of the offending toddler was right there, and she got him to apologize and help repair the damage he’d caused. Lindsey wished that all conflicts could be resolved so simply.

There was no sign of Milton when she passed the circulation desk and went into the workroom, where her office was located. Ms. Cole was assisting a patron with a fine, and if she had any opening-night jitters about the play, they didn’t show. Lindsey found herself speculating about Milton and Ms. Cole, but then she shook her head. Curious as she was, it was none of her business.

She went into her office and decided to try and work on her presentation to the Friends of the Library. She wanted them to consider broadening the summer reading program to include prizes for whole families; after all, having parents and grandparents model good reading behavior for kids was probably the most effective way to up the community’s involvement, especially if prizes were involved.

She was just going over her proposal when Heather poked her head into the office. “Hi, Ms. Norris. I was just wondering—did Dylan call out?”

Lindsey glanced at her phone. The flashing light that indicated a waiting voice mail was solid, so no messages.

“No, not to my phone, at any rate,” she said. “Did you check with Ms. Stanley?”

“Yeah, she said she didn’t hear from him, either. He wasn’t at school today,” Heather said. She hesitated and then added, “His mom called my house last night around midnight, looking for him. She called Perry’s house, too. As far as I know, he never went home. I’m worried about him.”

“He’s not in trouble,” Lindsey said. “I mean, Chief Plewicki let him go last night, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“You know he gets sick a lot,” Heather said. “What if the stress of all of this is making him ill?”

“I’ll call his mother,” Lindsey said, “and make sure he’s okay.”

“Thank you,” Heather said. She looked relieved.

Lindsey took a key out of her top drawer and used it to open the locked file cabinet in the corner. The cabinet contained the library’s personnel files, and she flipped through it until she came to Dylan’s folder. His phone number and personal information were in it, and she carried it back to her desk.

The very first sheet had his phone number, but she took a second to flip through the file. The form was generic, but she noted that Joanie had stapled a handwritten note to the file. It listed all of the ailments that Dylan was known to suffer from and as Lindsey read through the list, she found herself getting more and more alarmed.