Late Checkout

by Carol J. Perry

  Chapter 17

  “Must be a coincidence,” Rhonda said. “Anyway, Wee Willie is dead.”

  “Wasn’t dead when the Templetons made out their guest list,” I pointed out. “I’m going to make a note of the address. Do you think that’d be okay?”

  “The lists aren’t marked ‘confidential,’” she said. “Go ahead. Still, it’s not a really unusual name. Why would high-society people like the Templetons have an old ex-con on their list? Must be some other Wallace Williams.”

  “You’re probably right,” I agreed. But I copied the name and address—a post office box—into my notebook just the same, then resumed my stamp-sticking. Rhonda and I finished with our designated cards at almost the same moment. She pointed to the gold starburst clock on the wall. It showed exactly four forty-five.

  “Look,” she said. “We got it done right on time. Couldn’t have made it without you. Thanks, Lee. I’m outta here. Gotta get these to the post office.” She swept the piles of cards into a large two-handled USPS plastic container. She tapped a button on her console. “Finished here, Mr. D. On my way to the post office. See you in the morning.” She motioned for me to follow her. “Hurry up,” she whispered, “before he thinks of something else for us to do for Buffy’s Halloween bash.”

  I grabbed my purse and sweater and scooted along behind her into the hallway. She put the box on the floor and punched the elevator DOWN button “Take the stairs if you want to,” she said. “I’ve got this thing.” She tapped the plastic box with a toe.

  “I’ll ride with you,” I said, grasping one of the box handles. “Here comes Old Clunky now.” We waited for the brass cage to swing open and together we stepped inside.

  “You know,” she said, as we clunked and clanked our way down to the lobby, “I’ve been thinking about that Wallace Williams invitation.”

  “Me too. What about it?”

  “Chances are, you know, that it’s a coincidence. That the Templeton’s Wallace Williams has nothing to do with your dead guy in the stacks.”

  “He’s not my dead guy,” I mumbled. “But what if it’s not a coincidence?”

  “Simple. Just ask young Howie Junior. He must know his parent’s A-list friends.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe. I think I’ll just do a little checking around first. You’re probably right about it being a coincidence anyway. I don’t want young Howie to think I’m curious about his family.”

  “But you are,” she said as the elevator door slid open.

  We each took a handle of the box and walked together across the black-and-white tiled lobby. “That’s true,” I admitted. “I’m curious lately about several people at this station. Maybe I’m just being nosy.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean unless you’re getting curious about me.”

  I walked with her to her car—a nice little white Kia Soul—and helped situate the box on the passenger seat. “Not unless you’ve ever had some dealings with a short, baseball-playing, horse-doping, Hollywood-actor-type ex-con.”

  She raised her right hand and laughed. “Not my type. Honest! See you Monday?”

  “See you Monday,” I echoed and walked across the lot to where my sweet Vette glistened in the fading sunlight. I wondered if Aunt Ibby had been admitted back into the library yet. I sat for a moment in my car, admiring the beauty of the harbor at sundown and texted my aunt. “U home?”

  It only took a moment for her to call me. “Hi,” I said. “I was just wondering if you were home or if the police had let you go back to work.”

  “Yes. We’re back! Just can’t let anybody go up into the stacks yet. I think I’ll work a little late tonight, dear. Are you all right for supper? Do you have plans with Pete?”

  “I have some dinners in the freezer,” I said, “and Pete’s on duty all weekend. Guess it’ll just be O’Ryan and me. We’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will. Tyler and I will both work the Sunday shift too, one to five tomorrow afternoon.” She sighed softly. “People have suddenly found a need to visit the library—I’m afraid it’s due more to morbid curiosity than to intellectual pursuit.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. “But some of those people will find out what a great library we have. They’ll be back.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Her voice brightened. “I’ll see you later this evening.”

  We said our goodbyes and I backed out of the lot. That frozen dinner option sounded pretty unappetizing. A nice rotisserie chicken and a prepared salad with blue cheese dressing sounded a whole lot better. I aimed the Vette for Shaw’s and added a slice of cherry cheesecake to my mental shopping list.

  By the time I left the grocery store with my chosen meal, plus one of Rachael Ray’s newest kitty treats for O’Ryan, the sun had set. Where did I park? The parking lot was filled. Saturday night is food shopping night in many Salem homes. I pulled out my key remote, hit the unlock button, and watched for my headlights to flash.

  Found it! I hurried across the lot toward the Bahama blue beauty, and put the bag onto the passenger seat. I walked around to the driver’s side and noticed that the green Subaru Forester right beside mine was not empty. (Late model. Probably last year’s. I’m pretty good at identifying cars. My years as a NASCAR wife taught me a lot.) The glow of a cigarette briefly illuminated the lower half of a man’s face. A baseball cap hid his eyes. Was he looking at me? I couldn’t tell. So why is my heart pounding?

  I knew the answer to that. It was the idea I’d been trying to push out of my mind. Did whoever killed Wee Willie up in the stacks see me? Does he think I saw him? Is he following me?

  I tried to force the bad thought away—thought instead about chicken and salad and cheesecake and that Aunt Ibby would be home soon and that it was silly to suspect every random person who looked the least bit suspicious.

  There. Much better, I started the big engine, taking comfort in the powerful sound of it. I began to back up. Looked right. Looked left.

  The man in the Subaru took a drag on his cigarette. It lit up his mouth and cheeks the creepy way that little flashlight had illuminated Howie’s.

  The man turned his head toward me and smiled.

  Chapter 18

  I backed out of the space much too fast and way too carelessly. What if somebody is walking behind me? Or what if I tangle with a rogue shopping cart? Neither happened, thank God, and I slowed to a proper pace before I’d reached the lot exit. But all the way home I kept checking the rearview mirrors.

  This wasn’t like me. Not at all. I was overreacting and I knew it. The idea that someone who thought I’d seen a crime being committed might be stalking me had brought with it a vivid and totally unrealistic point of view. Why shouldn’t a man, sneaking a smoke while his wife shopped for groceries, look over at me and smile. Or more likely, look at my really cool car and smile.

  By the time I’d reached Oliver Street and opened the garage door, my heart rate felt more normal. I’d hoped the Buick would be there but it wasn’t. I rolled into my accustomed space, closed the garage door, and walked around to the passenger side and picked up my bag of groceries. The side door of our garage opens onto a flagstone path leading past the garden to the back steps of the house. Solar lamps along the way gave a golden glow to the low rows of herbs and fall blooms bordering the garden fence. Basil, mint, and rosemary were interspersed with marigolds and zinnias. Within the fence though, where hazy dark shadows had formed, the sunflowers nodded round shaggy heads and waved skinny, leafy arms in my direction. I walked a little faster.

  O’Ryan, as always, knew I was coming and waited for me on the top step. “I’m so happy to see you, big cat,” I told him as I unlocked the door. “Brought you a treat.”

  O’Ryan knows the word “treat,” and acknowledged it with a loud, purring, “Mrrripp.” (It’s entirely possible that he may know all of our words.) We started up the two flights of stairs to my apartment. Wait a minute! Did I relock the door? I turned and rushed back down to
check. O’Ryan kept right on going. It was locked, of course. I gave the knob a hard shake for good measure and hurried to catch up with the cat.

  O’Ryan was already inside when I unlocked and carefully relocked that door. He was curled up in his zebra-print wing chair, pretending he’d fallen asleep waiting for me. “Come on, you big fake,” I said. “Time for our supper.”

  We walked together down the short hall past the bathroom to the kitchen, me clicking on light switches all the way. O’Ryan jumped up onto the windowsill overlooking the backyard while I put the groceries on the counter, hung my hobo bag on the back of a Lucite chair, then turned on the bedroom light and put my cardigan away.

  I filled O’Ryan’s bowl with “Paw Lickin’ Chicken,” then carved a couple of slices from the rotisserie bird for myself, dumped dressing onto the colorful salad, and put the cheesecake into the refrigerator for later. O’Ryan was happily hunched over his bowl, and I’d just lifted a forkful of cucumber with a lovely blob of blue cheese on it when the cat suddenly streaked across the room, back to his windowsill perch. He pressed his face against the pane.

  “What’s going on, boy?” I pushed my chair back and stood behind him, leaning close to the window and peering into the darkness. “Is Aunt Ibby out there?” Kit-Cat clock indicated a few minutes before seven—just about the time I expected she’d be through at the library. “Aren’t you going to go downstairs to welcome her home?”

  O’Ryan turned his fuzzy head and looked at me, then jumped down from the sill and trotted down the hall to the living room, where I heard the cat door swing open. I stayed at the window, looking down to where the solar lights marked the flagstone path. I saw my aunt approaching the house and I smiled when she bent to pick some fresh herbs as she passed the garden. I couldn’t see the back steps from where I stood, but imagined that O’Ryan would already be stationed there to welcome her home. I was about to return to my salad when a shadow appeared on the path, then a tall figure.

  Someone is following her!

  The fastest way to get downstairs was the front stairway. I bolted through my kitchen door and raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. I dashed through her living room and into her kitchen. “Aunt Ibby,” I cried, just as she opened the kitchen door. “Watch out! Someone is . . .”

  “Good heavens, Maralee,” she said. “Whatever is the matter? Come on in, Dave.”

  The security guard, carrying several cartons piled one on top of the other, ducked his head slightly as he came through the doorway, and placing the box on the counter, nodded in my direction. “Hi, Ms. Barrett. Everything okay?” O’Ryan looked from one to the other of us, then sat on his haunches in front of the refrigerator.

  “Uh, hi, Dave. Sure. No problem. O’Ryan just tore out of my kitchen so fast I thought something might be wrong.” The cat swiveled his head around, doing that cat-glaring thing in my direction. Oh sure. Blame the cat, why don’t you? I almost heard the words.

  “Dave was kind enough to follow me in his car,” my aunt said, “and to carry this huge pile of old library cards, book donation records, and assorted other documents that have never been properly catalogued.” She made a make-believe sad face. “Guess who volunteered to do the homework involved.”

  “I’ll be glad to help if I can,” I offered, hoping to derail any conversation about my near-panicked entrance, “if it’s not too technical.”

  Her expression brightened. “Not technical at all. Just tedious.”

  “Well, if you girls are all set here, I guess I’ll be getting back to the library.” Dave moved toward the door. “Officer Costa was supposed to get off duty at seven.”

  “You go along then,” my aunt said, “and here. Take some cookies with you. She reached into the Humpty-Dumpty cookie jar and put a dozen snickerdoodles into a plastic box. I walked with Dave to the back door, and watched as he hurried toward his car, then I closed and locked the door once again.

  I locked the kitchen door behind me too, and opened the carton on the counter. “This looks like all different kinds of paper documents. What’s in here?”

  “Things that we’ve never found time to catalog properly.” She sighed. “And there’s not enough money in the budget to hire someone to do it.”

  I lifted a few of the papers at the top of one of the boxes and pulled out an old library card. “The date on this is 1979,” I said. “What are you saving it for? It’s just an old card.”

  “I know. Seems silly, but the directors don’t like to get rid of anything until it’s been copied or listed on a computer somehow. We just pick away at it when we have some spare time. Wait ’til you see the receipt books. Every time somebody donates books whoever is at the desk writes a paper receipt. People can take them off their taxes, you know.”

  I lifted a book of duplicate receipts from another box. “Like this? These plain old receipt books you buy at the office store?”

  “Yep. That’s just one. There must be hundreds of them in there. That’s what makes it so heavy. We’ve always done it that way. For years. What’s interesting about these is that the sports books on the floor where you found Wee Willie were mostly donated.”

  “Does Pete know about this?”

  “It was his idea.”

  “I get it. If you go through these and match them up with the books Wee Willie was looking at up there in 790 you’ll know where they came from—and maybe what the killer wanted. Do we have a list?”

  “Pete e-mailed me the list. There are nineteen books on it. Want to help?” She arranged the boxes on the counter, largest to smallest.

  Did the killer see me? Does he think I saw him?

  “Sure. Let me run upstairs and put my dinner in the fridge. I left it on the table when I ran down here.”

  “Oh course. What was that all about anyway? You seemed quite excited.” She frowned. “You must still be hungry. I’ll fix something.”

  “Please don’t bother,” I said, not meaning it.

  “No trouble at all,” she said, knowing I didn’t mean it. “I have homemade vegetable soup. Right from our garden.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I climbed the front stairs once again and realized that I’d left the door to my kitchen wide open. Not smart. I hurried inside, closing it carefully behind me, covered all the components of my dinner with plastic wrap, put them into the refrigerator, and started back to my aunt’s kitchen—and vegetable soup.

  On the way down the front stairs I rehearsed the explanation for my bat-out-of-hell entrance to her kitchen earlier. Did I have good reason to be worried about the killer having seen me in the stacks? Or was I just being paranoid about the whole thing?

  I sat at the round table—no room at the counter—with a steaming bowl of soup in front of me, New England pilot crackers and a glass of milk on the side. “I was looking out the window when you arrived home tonight and when I saw Dave following you—of course I didn’t know it was Dave—I kind of freaked out.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about me maybe seeing the killer and him maybe seeing me.”

  “I see,” she repeated. “You thought he might be following me?”

  “I know. I’m being unreasonable. Pete says they’ll have the guy in a day or so. He’s surely going to show up on one or more of the cameras.”

  “I’m sure he’s right. Trust Pete.” She reached across the table and patted my hand. “Thank you for worrying about me though. Now enjoy your soup while I try to arrange these boxes in some sort of order.”

  So that’s what I did. I enjoyed my soup and I trusted Pete and I hardly worried at all about the smiling man in the Subaru.

  Chapter 19

  With the receipt books—over two hundred of them—divided into two piles, and with a pad of paper and sharpened number two pencils in front of each of us, we began the search for sports books. Not as easy a task as it might seem. Not all of the receipts included book titles, although the on
es that acknowledged quantities of books sometimes did. Most of the receipts had a “subject line” and those usually gave the category of the books involved. The titles, my aunt explained, would show up on an inventory list on or around the same date as the receipt. “Looks like lots of checking and cross-checking, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “Afraid so.” She sounded cheerful. She enjoys this kind of thing. “Almost all of the books in the stacks are hardcover editions. Most of the paperback ones usually go to the Friends of the Library book sales. Oh, look. Someone donated one on NASCAR drivers. Do you think your Johnny is in it?”

  “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” I said. “Are we just going to put all the sports-related receipts in one place, then check those against the list Pete sent over?”

  “Yes. I think that’d be best. Skip any fiction sports title though. Those wouldn’t have been shelved in seven-ninety.”

  So we went through the receipts, one by one, struggling to decipher a variety of handwriting styles, pulling out any that seemed to refer to sports. While we worked, only pausing once for tea, I told her about Mrs. Doan’s recent request that we find Professor Mercury for her Halloween party entertainment. “I’ve got a good lead on Katie the Clown, and you say you know where Ranger Rob is. I’m thinking that one or both of them will know where the professor is.” I pulled a slip that said “Assorted sports books. Fifty-two pieces.” I’d almost tossed it onto the pile when I looked at the name of the donor and did a Three Stooges–worthy double take. “Oh my God. Look.” I held the receipt in front of her. “Look who it’s made out to.”

  “Sharon Stewart,” she read aloud. “It’s dated a few months ago. Should the name mean something to me?”

  “Stewart is the name of the family whose house was broken into recently. Books were scattered around there too. What do you bet these are some of the books that wound up on the library floor—along with Wee Willie?”