Can't Judge a Book by Its Murder

by Amy Lillard

  “Honestly.” Fern shot Faulkner a disapproving look. “Where does he learn such things?”

  “He just picks it up.” Arlo had thought having a bird around the shop would be an interesting addition. Birds weren’t as needy as a dog or as allergy provoking as a cat. She had found him by chance on Craigslist, and when she heard the creature’s name, she knew it was fate. But whoever had Faulkner before her had definitely been a colorful character. It had taken months, but Arlo had managed to tone down the bird’s salty vocabulary, but she couldn’t do anything about the quick way he learned.

  Camille cleared her throat and all attention swung back to her. “I’ve read this other author’s work and found the unusual method of writing to enhance the overall story, not detract from it.”

  “Are you saying the method of writing takes away from the overall story in Wally’s novel?”

  “I don’t know, love,” Camille said. “I almost feel like Wally didn’t edit himself very well and his editors took it as stream of consciousness and ran with it.”

  Helen had moved around the back of the couch and lifted the lid from her Crock-Pot. The smell of garlic and spices filled the room. Arlo’s stomach rumbled, and she realized that she had missed lunch. How many days in a row now had she done that? Too many, she was certain, and she made a vow to start taking a half hour during the day to sit and eat.

  “So his writing style was unintentional?” Helen asked as she started filling plates.

  “I didn’t say that, just that it seemed that way. Stream of consciousness is about interior thought. Our brains tend to jump from one subject to the next. But the sections where Mr. Harrison uses this method and his lack of punctuation aren’t always in a character’s thoughts.”

  “That’s right,” Fern chimed in.

  “I feel certain that’s the way Mr. Harrison intended for it to be perceived, but to me it seemed like he sort of threw it together.”

  “So we have to chalk that up as experimentation with voice,” Camille mused.

  Only a former English teacher would make an observation that concise. Maybe their book club would be all right after all.

  * * *

  Experimentation with voice. The words knocked around inside Arlo’s head for the remainder of their meeting. The ladies seemed to enjoy having Sam infiltrate their hen party, but Arlo still wasn’t entirely convinced he was only there because he was interested in a third-floor lease. It wasn’t like he could even walk the space. All he could do was stand at the doorway and stare over the yellow crime scene tape to the spot where Wally had spent some of the last moments of his life.

  The bell over the door rang. Arlo looked up from restacking the copies of Wally’s book to find Mads coming through the door.

  “Hey, Chief.” She straightened the last book, stood, and dusted herself off.

  “Got rid of your display?” He gave a quick nod to the empty table where all Wally’s books had been the day before.

  “Yeah, I thought it best.” Her first plan had been to take down the unintentionally prophetic sign. She had debated on whether to leave up the display. Was it tacky? She couldn’t be sure. Her decision was made for her when she removed the sign. Without it, the table looked bare. Even more so when she removed the vandalized copies of Missing Girl. Ten in all. At almost thirty dollars a pop, it was a lot of inventory to write off. But what choice did she have really? There were no security cameras, and she couldn’t say that the marks hadn’t been there when she built the display and she simply hadn’t noticed. So she would smile, hide her aggravation, and take the loss. But she had to wonder if the marks were there when Travis Coleman was making his selection.

  Mads walked over to where she stood, his keys jingling with every step he took. Every law officer she had ever known had carried around a ton of keys. What were they all for? One day she might ask, but today was not that day. Mads was normally a contemplative sort of fellow, but today he looked almost morose.

  “Want a coffee?” she asked. “Chloe’s straightening up the storage area, but she’ll come make you one.”

  He shook his head. “I need to go upstairs.”

  She nodded, a quick smile flashing across her lips. “Are you going to take down the police tape?” It would be great to have the third floor back again. She was anxious to get it leased. When that happened, a huge financial weight would be lifted from her shoulders.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “The coroner’s report is in.”

  Arlo waited as he cleared his throat. Chloe picked that time to come out of the storeroom with two stacks of to-go cups and lids balanced in her arms.

  “Wally’s death was no suicide. He was murdered.”

  Arlo felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room. Chloe trembled in place, not moving an inch despite the awkward load she carried.

  Wally had been murdered. Pushed from the window of their third floor. “So he didn’t jump? How can you be sure?”

  Mads shook his head. “The fall killed Wally. But there was foul play involved.”

  Chloe was speechless.

  Arlo gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “Poison,” Mads said. “Wally was poisoned.”

  9

  “Poisoned?” The word that escaped Chloe was more of a hushed squeak than anything. Arlo was amazed she even heard it over the clatter of the boxes. Everything Chloe had been carrying hit the floor with a crash. “How could he have been poisoned?” she muttered as she stood there among the to-go cups, paper sleeves, and plastic lids. She wrung her hands, making Arlo think of Radonna Caldwell as Lady Macbeth in their junior year drama project.

  Arlo moved toward her friend. Lady Macbeth hadn’t killed the father of her children. And neither had Chloe. And that’s all Arlo would allow herself to think of the situation.

  She clasped Chloe’s cold fingers between her own hands and gently squeezed. “Come sit down.” She tugged her friend toward the reading nook. Thankfully Chloe was too shocked to do anything other than obey.

  “Who poisoned him?” Arlo asked. She needed to get her friend some tea and allow its healing properties to soothe away her stress, but that could wait a minute or two.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “But you’re going to find out,” Arlo said, pressing him.

  What remained of Chloe’s color drained from her face. Arlo hoped Mads hadn’t noticed. Chloe had all but sworn that she hadn’t hurt Wally, but there was a wild look about her now that Arlo didn’t know how to assuage. Chloe looked frazzled and forlorn all at the same time.

  Mads didn’t bother answering. He turned to Arlo. “I need to go up to the third floor again.”

  “Sure thing.” She gave a quick look around. A couple of kids, no more than twelve years old, were thumbing through the books at the beginning of the Home and Garden section. They had come in after Mads, and Arlo was fairly certain they weren’t interested in Grilling Solutions for Small Spaces, the book they were currently using to block her view of their faces. Other than them and Sally Dell, a new mom who came in every day with her cherub of a baby to browse through picture books, the store was empty. Arlo had determined weeks ago that Sally needed an excuse to get out of the house and a place to go once she managed her escape. Chloe could handle these customers in her sleep. She just wished her business partner was napping instead of staring at the magazines and obviously seeing nothing. “Let me get my keys.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she told Chloe.

  Chloe nodded in return.

  Together Arlo and Mads went out the front and around the side of the building.

  “Is there a door from the inside that leads to the third floor?” he asked.

  “Of course, but I thought this would be easier. The store access is blocked.” And going outside gave her the excuse to get out into the sunshine, if only for a couple of minutes.


  “Where is that door?”

  Arlo jerked a thumb over one shoulder as if that in any way indicated the direction. It did not. “Back in the store. Opposite the bathrooms. It stays locked most of the time. Especially now that we’re offering the third floor for lease.” She used her key to open the separate door on the side of the building. The space was barely the size of a bathroom stall, but it held the staircase that led to the third floor.

  Mads stepped in behind her and tilted his head back, looking around as if he had never seen it before.

  Arlo flipped on the switch and light trickled down from the bulb three stories above. By the time it got to them, it was not much more than a promising shadow. Mads unhooked his flashlight from his belt, switched it on, and shone it in front of him as he climbed the stairs. Arlo followed behind.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “I can’t discuss the case,” he said shortly. He trained the beam of his flashlight on one side of the staircase, then the other. She was fairly certain that Jason Rogers had done that same thing after Wally had taken his nosedive, but she wasn’t about to point that out to Mads. If Wally had indeed been poisoned, then a killer was still out there on the loose.

  The thought almost buckled her knees. She missed a step and nearly face-planted on the stairs. Only Mads’s quick reflexes kept her from tumbling all the way back down to the bottom. And she thought he had forgotten she was there.

  “Careful.”

  She nodded.

  They continued up to the third floor. Mads was still examining the walls and stairs as he climbed the steps. Arlo concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other to keep from having another slip. Almost falling at her ex-boyfriend’s feet once a day was more than enough.

  They reached the third-floor landing and Arlo used another key to open the final door.

  “Was this locked the day Wally died?”

  She shook her head. Mads had asked her before, and she had given the same answer then as she did now. “The door from the street was locked, but I left this one unlocked so the Realtor would have an easier time showing the space.”

  “And once you lease the space, the tenant will want his own keys.”

  “Of course.”

  Mads nodded, then flipped on the light switch just inside the room.

  A series of lights came on, lighting the space with a soft yellow glow that added to the rays of bright southern sunlight that managed to filter through the dirty windows.

  Two wooden crates left by the previous owner sat facing each other near the window. The window where Wally had been pushed to his death.

  Goose bumps skittered across her arms. She wasn’t going to think about that. The wide inside ledge on the window gave the room a charming look. Like a person could sit there and gaze down at all the people on Main Street. Was that what Wally had been doing? Come to think of it, she didn’t remember seeing the crates in front of the window the last time she had been on the third floor. They must have been pushed over next to the stack of boxes stored there. Or had they? She wished she knew for certain.

  Aside from the couch Arlo had picked up for the second-floor reading nook that she never ended up creating and the half-dozen cases of paper supplies that Chloe had squirreled away over time, the space was empty.

  “Chief? You up here?”

  And speak of the devil.

  Jason Rogers rounded the corner, pulling Mads from whatever thought he was processing.

  “Yep.” He waited until Jason crossed the room to stand next to them before he continued. “Show me where the cup was again.”

  Jason pointed to one of the crates. “Next to the wooden box.”

  “On the floor,” Mads said. It wasn’t really a question.

  “On the floor,” Jason said by way of confirmation.

  “And there was only one.” Mads again.

  “Yes.”

  Which meant whoever pushed Wally had taken their own cup. If they had had one. Which could go either way really. But if it had been Chloe, then the tea would have given her away as surely as her DNA.

  “What’s wrong?” Arlo asked.

  Jason jerked a thumb toward Mads. “Chief is upset. I know I put the cup in an evidence bag, and now we can’t find it.”

  Mads shot him a look. Arlo had seen it before. Some things didn’t need to be shared, and his chief officer’s incompetence was at the top of the list. But Jason was a hometown boy who hadn’t gone away to find a better life and then come back when it all fell through. He had been in Sugar Springs since birth, taking the occasional trip to Memphis and Tupelo to break the monotony. He was Sugar Springs through and through and the people there liked him. Even if he occasionally messed up.

  “I kept the earring,” Jason boasted, receiving another look from Mads.

  “What earring?” Arlo asked.

  Mads started to say something, but Jason plowed ahead. “I found a diamond earring. Right over there by the window.” He puffed out his chest.

  “I see.”

  “Big sucker too. Maybe even three carats. Biggest diamond I ever seen.”

  “Jason.” Mads’s tone was low in warning.

  “Sorry, Chief.”

  A moment of silence fell among the three of them before Mads spoke again. “There was only one,” he mused.

  One cup and one earring. One diamond earring. Couldn’t be too many pairs of three-carat diamond earrings out there. Only a handful of people in Sugar Springs could afford such an extravagance.

  Mads turned and pinned Arlo with a sharp look. He was in full-out professional cop mode now. “Can you come down to the station this afternoon?”

  “The station?” It was perhaps the last thing she expected him to ask. “I-I guess. I mean…why?”

  “I want to go over your statement with you again.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Sure.” Though she couldn’t help wondering the reason.

  “Good. See you then.”

  * * *

  Soon after one o’clock, Arlo excused herself from the bookstore and took a walk down the street to the police station. She hadn’t wanted to tell Chloe where she was going, so she mumbled something about the bank and made her escape.

  She had been to the police station her fair share of times during her life in Sugar Springs. There had been the time that someone had let all the air out of the school bus tires and the principal had filed a police report over the matter, claiming he knew one of the members of the senior class had committed the act. They never did find out who was responsible. And then there was the time that Joe Campbell had thrown a tailgate party, not bothering to tell everyone that they weren’t on his daddy’s land when they parked. Instead, they had been in old man Gilbert’s pasture, and old man Gilbert did not take kindly to trespassers. Those were probably the worst two times, but the atmosphere today was different than it had been then. The air almost crackled, as if the murder were zapping people like a jolt of static electricity. And everyone was working. Even Frances Jacobs, who answered the phone, was busy. Normally she was seated at her desk, today’s Commercial Appeal open to the crossword and sudoku. She claimed it kept her mind sharp. Today, on her desk was a thick book like the old dictionary the school library had had when Arlo was a child. Well, one of the schools anyway. Her parents had moved her around so much she couldn’t remember which. Only that the book had sat on a pedestal and was usually open to the page displaying unmentionable body parts.

  “Did you find anything?” Mads came out of his office to peer over Frances’s shoulder.

  She sighed. “Not yet, and I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m trying to read.”

  He took a couple of steps back and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. But I still think it would be easier if you looked it up on the internet.”

  “Uh-huh.” Frances dragg
ed out the word to show her disbelief. “You have your way and I have mine.”

  Mads looked up and snagged Arlo’s gaze as if he had only then realized that she was standing there. “Hey. I’ve got somebody in my office right now. Can you wait a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t want to wait a few minutes, but she didn’t want to have to come back either.

  “Good.” Mads flashed her a quick smile, then ducked back into his office.

  “Honestly, I adore that man, but his obsession with the internet.” Frances shook her head.

  Arlo bit back a laugh. “Most people are obsessed with the internet,” she replied as gently as possible.

  “I don’t understand why.” The chain that held her glasses around her neck swayed as Frances bobbed her head from side to side, her attention still trained on the enormous book in front of her.

  “Maybe I can help you understand how the internet works.”

  “Mads and Jason have already tried.”

  And neither one of them would have the patience to teach a seventy-something-year-old woman who had never owned a computer how to use the internet.

  “It’s up to you,” Arlo offered once again.

  Frances cast a quick look to the door behind her, Mads’s door, then motioned her over. “Come show me. He needs this information and I’m apparently the only one who can get it for him.”

  “Where’s Jason?”

  Frances waved a flighty hand in the air, her gaze once more on the tome open in front of her. “Somebody painted the school mascot on four of Johnny Ray’s cows.”

  “Sounds like a senior prank.”

  “Probably, but he’s upset since he was fixing to take them to the auction. Now he can’t sell them until the paint wears off.”

  Arlo nodded. Johnny Ray Horton, part-time rancher, part-time preacher, was a stickler when it came to his cows. He was also adamantly opposed to the school mascot—the Blue Devils. Inevitably, at some time during the school year, someone from the senior class painted at least one of his cows with the mascot. Even with only a couple of weeks left in school, it seemed the pranks were still in full swing.