by E. M. Moore
“I know you’re doing a great job here, Maddie. Mom always tells me how much she enjoys working with you.”
I smiled at the screen as I started to copy the footage from both cameras to the flash drive. “I feel the same about working with your mom. She’s great. Knows her stuff, too, which is helpful.” The download completed, so I dragged the picture over to the flash drive folder and then ejected the drive before handing it over to him. “Anything else?”
“Thank you for this,” he said, taking it from me. “It would have taken me forever to get a warrant.”
“You’re welcome. Keep it on the down low, though, would you? You’d be surprised what people complain about.”
“I’m not looking to see what Mrs. Watson takes out of the library,” he said, smirking.
My eyes bulged out of my head. “Mrs. Watson? Who told you?” I mentally ran though the previous day. Was she even in yesterday? I looked at the flash drive and wanted—badly—to tear it out of his hands. He must have sensed this because he put it in his pocket.
“I was just joking,” he said. “I don’t care what Mrs. Watson takes out of the library. This will be used for strictly crime evidence, that is all. You have my word.”
I nodded and shooed him out of the closet. After locking it behind me, I walked with him to the front desk. “What do you think it means that Sandy was here?”
“Don’t know,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “Whether it means something or not, it doesn’t look good.”
“You don’t think she murdered him?”
“Too soon to tell, but isn’t it a little funny that her father ends up dying at a place she wasn’t supposed to be? Even if she didn’t do it, there must have been a specific reason for her being here, and who knows, it’s more than likely related to why we found him dead in that elevator.”
Jackson looked up and across the room. I followed his gaze. The elevator looked just like it always did, except, it was creepier somehow. Just knowing what had happened there made me uneasy. Once we got all the funding—if we got all the funding—that new elevator couldn’t come at a better time.
Chapter 5
Fifteen minutes before opening, Mrs. Ward walked in. She was a little paler than her usual bright self, but nothing alarming. Once Jackson left, I sent her a text and told her he had already been there to get the tapes and everything at the library was fine. In fact, Ray, the janitor, was re-scrubbing the elevator as she came around the desk. I was going to do it myself, but he said he would do it and for once, I let someone else do the dirty work. The thought of wiping up any blood or wondering what it was I was cleaning was creeping me out just thinking about it, let alone what would happen if I actually did find something.
I shivered and Mrs. Ward put a hand on my shoulder. “I know, sweetie. I’m glad you have Ray in there. Maybe we can shut the doors once he cleans it again.”
“Good idea.”
She put her purse in the bottom drawer and took her usual seat. “I’m glad you worked everything out with Jackson this morning. I told him you were fine, but he insisted on going out to your place to check on you.”
Yeah. Sure. “He told me it was your idea.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Well, I’m glad he has the footage. He said Mrs. Sanders took the news hard. What a wonderful woman she is. Heartbreaking, isn’t it? I figure once the announcement about the wake and funeral comes out, we can go together.”
“Yes, it’s only right.” I let out a long sigh as I stared at the guest list from last night. “How early is too early to contact the guests from last night and ask for money?”
Mrs. Ward turned with her eyebrows raised.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “I’ll give it a week or two.”
“Writing a check was the last thing on everyone’s mind as they left yesterday.”
“I hope it hasn’t left their mind completely. If I don’t get this elevator funded, the board—”
Mrs. Ward shook her head. “The board won’t do anything to you. You couldn’t control whether we had a murder in the library.”
“Mrs. Adams—” I started, mentioning again the member of the board who hated me.
“She’s a hoity-toity aristocrat. Even she can’t blame this on you.”
I took the list and filed it in my Elevator Fundraiser binder. If this didn’t work, there were still other avenues to try. All hope was not lost.
Mrs. Ward stood. “Thank you, Ray,” she called. I looked up to see Ray coming out of the elevator with his yellow bucket and mop. “Can you do me a favor, dear, and shut those doors?”
“Thank you,” I called out, mimicking Jackson’s mother. Ray closed the doors, and I stared at the ornate wooden carvings on the other side. “You know what might be nice? Maybe we can put a little tribute up for Mr. Sanders?” I turned toward Mrs. Ward. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s a lovely idea. We can buy flowers and arrange them there. Then, we can look through the microfiche and maybe print out some of the most important articles that were written about him over the years.”
“Perfect. It will be an educational tribute. Kind of like what we do for Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Presidents. I bet some of our patrons would be shocked to know how much he did for this town.”
“I’ll order the flowers once I check-in today’s newspapers.”
“I’ll do a search for him in the periodicals. You’re a genius, Mrs. Ward.” I pulled up the catalog and started a search for George Sanders. It took me a little while to realize that Mrs. Ward hadn’t responded to my comment. She always laughs off my “genius” remarks, but there was nothing. I peeked over at her. She was engrossed in a newspaper article. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said. She closed the newspaper and readied the black ink and stamp.
“Mrs. Ward? What is it?”
She shook her head, but the pink in her cheeks was a telltale sign that something was wrong. I stood and went over to her. In big, bold letters, the headline of the newspaper read, ‘Prominent Salem Business Man, George Sanders, Found Dead in Local Library’.
I gasped. “No.” Mrs. Ward ignored me and continued to stamp and barcode the paper. I grabbed it out from under her and started reading the article. Most of it was stuff I already knew, but there were some interesting tidbits. And when I say interesting, I mean insulting. Like this line, ‘Miss Madison Styles, new Library Director, who had hoped to raise enough money for the library’s new elevator after theirs was determined irreparable last Spring is helping in the investigation according to Detective Jackson Ward. However, the detective was concerned about the lack of security in the building, especially with such a function taking place. ‘A security presence was not available at the library function,’ he said. ‘There is security footage available from cameras, but I doubt the camera angles will give us the information we need. It’s unfortunate. We’ll have to get a warrant to obtain that footage, anyway.’”
I gasped again and Mrs. Ward said, “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s unfortunate? He said that, right here…” I pointed at the paragraph in the article. “It’s unfortunate. What could he mean by that? It makes it sound like we don’t know what we’re doing. How could he say such a thing?”
“They probably twisted his words. You know how the media is.”
“There are quotes around it. You can’t put quotes around something that didn’t come directly from someone’s mouth.”
I threw the paper down on the desk and ran my hands through my hair.
“It really doesn’t sound bad, Maddie. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Didn’t mean anything by it? If he didn’t mean anything, he should have kept his mouth shut. “I know he’s your son, but I really don’t like him right now.”
“I told you he’s moody when he’s working a case. He puts too much of himself into the job. It makes him say and do crazy things.”
“Like attack a librarian?”
M
rs. Ward clamped her mouth shut around a laugh. “Maddie…”
“Mrs. Adams will have a field day with this. You know she will. I’m surprised she hasn’t called me yet. It’s probably only because she hasn’t gotten the paper.”
“And why wasn’t Mrs. Adams at the fundraiser last night? I really don’t like her and you shouldn’t care so much about what she thinks.”
“She’s my boss. I have to care what she thinks. She has the power to giveth and taketh away. Trust me, I will hear about this. She wasn’t at the fundraiser last night because her kid got sick, remember? You knew that. I told you that.”
Mrs. Ward shrugged. “It was your big night and she should have come anyway.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t like me. Now she’s going to like me even less when she sees what Jackson said about me in the paper, to the entire world.” She raised her eyebrows, and I calmed down a fraction of a centimeter. “Fine, to all of Salem. It’s still bad though.”
“Why don’t you go down to the station and talk to him about it then? I’m sure he’ll apologize and you can smooth this all over. Maybe he’ll even call Mrs. Adams on your behalf.”
Not a bad idea. If he called Mrs. Adams and told her he was wrong to say those things, that would negate everything. “You really are a genius. Can you handle things here? I won’t be long.”
She waved me away. “Go, go. Tell him I’m disappointed in him, too. He could have at least asked for my opinion before he spoke to that reporter.”
“Oh, I will. I’ll tell him.”
I snatched my purse and keys, stormed through the library, and pushed the heavy doors open as if they were made of plastic instead of century old wood. Have you ever driven somewhere and not remembered a single thing about how you got there? Or whether you obeyed any traffic laws whatsoever because you couldn’t even remember if you stopped at the red lights or stop signs? Yeah, that was what happened in this case.
I jumped out of the car and strode right into the police station. Scanning the offices, I looked for the one that said Detective Jackson Ward. I knew from his mother that when he received the promotion to detective, he also got his own office. Spotting a small plaque to the right of an open doorway, I made a bee line straight for it.
Josh Destin tried to smile at me, but it barely registered. Instead, his lips pulled into a smirk as he yelled out, “Comin’ in hot, Detective.”
Finally, I was there. I stood in the doorway, hands on hips, and scowled at him. He turned lazily around in his chair and slouched backward. “Yes, Maddie?”
It was at that moment I wished I’d brought the newspaper so I could dramatically throw it down on his messy desk. Maybe knock a few of his papers off and we would both watch as they feathered through the air until they came to a rest on the floor. Because I hadn’t thought that far ahead though, I just crossed my hands in front of my chest and said, “By chance did you see the newspaper this morning?”
He smiled and clasped his hands behind his head.
That was a yes. Or his mother warned him I was coming. “I find your lack of regret insulting.”
“Maddie,” he said, laughing. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. If you look at what I said, it doesn’t sound that bad.”
“Yes, yes it does. It sounds like you said I had no idea what I was doing. You said it was unfortunate we didn’t have the right angle. You said we didn’t have any security at the library. Let me ask you this question. Why should a library need security? Have we really fallen that far as a society that we need guards placed in the library? It’s ludicrous.”
He leaned back in his chair further, which only infuriated me even more. He was enjoying this. Straight up enjoying this.
“I did say it was unfortunate we didn’t have the right angle. Isn’t it unfortunate? If we had an angle that looked into the elevator, we’d know who killed George Sanders by now. As far as the other thing, she asked if the library had posted security and I told her no. That was also the truth. I didn’t lie, did I, Maddie?”
“But you made it sound as if it was a bad idea we didn’t have those things.”
Jackson shook his head, unlaced his fingers behind his head, and started to search his messy desk. Underneath a box and a couple papers, he pulled out the newspaper in question. “Read that, right there.”
He pointed to the part right before his quote. I shook my head. “You read that garbage. I’ve read enough.”
“Just read it.”
I sighed. “Fine. ‘However, the detective was concerned about the lack of security in the building, especially with such a function taking place.’”
I opened my mouth to tell him that only proved my point when he interrupted me. “The writer is the one who inferred that I was concerned about the lack of security. I wasn’t concerned at all. She took my words out of context. All I did was answer her questions.”
My whole body slumped as I read that part of the article again. I supposed he was right. Kind of. “Your mom said you should call Mrs. Adams for me.”
“Mrs. Adams is a hoity-toity aristocrat.”
I knew she called him! “You got that from your mother.”
He smiled, found his phone under another sheet of paper and waved it at me. “She gave me a heads up you were coming. Sit down,” he said, motioning toward the chair on the other side of his desk.
I stared at it and back at Jackson. He nodded, and I sat. I supposed I could stay since I got riled up over nothing. “Your mom could have told me I was making too big a deal about this.” Jackson just looked at me. He was right. Again. I was pretty sure Mrs. Ward tried to tell me Jackson meant nothing by it, then, she saw an opportunity to throw us together, so she took it. And I fell for it.
“I could call Mrs. Adams,” Jackson said. “But I know you better than that. You’ll want to take care of this yourself, on your own terms. If she says anything to you at all.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“That’s basically impossible.”
Shock registered, but embarrassment soon after. My cheeks burned. “So, um…” I started to talk without knowing what I would say. “…did you find anything in the tapes?”
He turned around in his chair allowing me to see the screenshot I took of Sandy Sanders. “This,” he said, pointing to it, “is the only peculiar thing in any of the footage. She’s the only one out of place.” He rubbed his chin with his thumb and stared at his computer screen.
“It would be a terrible thing to kill your own father,” I offered. “Almost unbelievable.”
He nodded, stare still lost. “I agree, but it does happen. There are a lot of twisted people out there, Mads. A lot.”
My stomach clenched. Mads. I hadn’t heard that in ages. I took a deep breath and blew it out. Jackson didn’t notice a thing, he was still too caught up in his own thoughts.
“That being said, though, I think it’s just part of the picture. We haven’t uncovered everything yet.” He leaned over and hit the power button on his monitor and then turned toward me. “Listen, this terrible woman didn’t offer to make me breakfast this morning when I showed up at her house, and I know for a fact she only ate some processed junk she heated in the microwave. You want to head out and get food with me? We can go to Red’s.”
“You’re not busy here?”
“Not until we get the information back on the knife handle. That should still be a couple hours.”
“I don’t know if I can leave the library…”
He held up his finger and started typing out a text on his phone. He smiled down at the screen and within five seconds, it alerted him he had one waiting. “Thanks for teaching Mom to text by the way. She’s got that down. God forbid she try to do anything else on that smart phone though and all bets are off.”
I laughed. I’d noticed the same thing and no matter how many times I tried to help her, she just couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get it. “Well…?” I said, gesturing to her response.
“She’s got
everything under control.”
Chapter 6
Red’s was a local hangout in Salem, but it also attracted tourists. I always thought it was interesting to go there to see the two worlds mesh. You had the tourists, who looked around as if everything was new, then you had everyone else who was just doing their regular thing like they did every day.
The restaurant had just started sitting tables on the sidewalk outside as well as inside, so Jackson offered to pick Maxie up so he could eat with us. Jackson kept surprising me today. I didn’t remember him being so considerate.
So, within fifteen minutes, we were sitting outside of Red’s with Maxie standing guard next to the table, his tongue out and lips pulled back almost as if he was smiling.
“He’s the perfect dog for this,” Jackson said. “So well-behaved. I remember when Derek told me you guys were going to get him.”
I smiled into my enormous pancake. Red’s always made them this big. I couldn’t even see the plate the pancake lay on. “I’m not surprised. I think he told everyone he knew. His mom would never let him get a dog growing up so Maxie was his first, ‘I’m finally doing what I want’ kind of thing.”
“I remember,” Jackson said.
I shook my head. Of course he did. Sometimes I acted as if Derek and I were in this bubble, but that wasn’t true. Jackson was Derek’s best friend.
“I know. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, taking a big gulp of his orange juice. “No worries. So, why do you think Mrs. Adams doesn’t like you?”
“Well, for starters, I know she was outvoted on whether they were going to hire me or not. She wanted Eliza Penn.”
“That old bitty?”
“That’s what I said. She doesn’t even have a librarian degree, did you know that? This town needs to realize that librarians go to school to learn useful stuff. I can give you statistics that show how much communities are bettered when their libraries are run by real librarians rather than ones who just have bachelor’s degrees.”
Jackson smirked.
