by Eva Gates
His blue eyes twinkled. “Never.”
* * *
Sam Watson returned to the library at closing time. He’d called Connor and invited him to come too.
We gathered in the main room. Bertie pulled up the wingback chair; Charlene sat behind the circulation desk. Ronald leaned against the wall, and I stood next to Connor. Watson faced us. Charles sat on a shelf next to Watson’s shoulder, as eager as the rest of us to hear what he had to say.
“I feel like I’m between the pages of a Lord Peter Wimsey novel,” I said. “All the characters have gathered in the library, eagerly waiting for the detective to make the big reveal.”
“All the characters except for the accused,” Watson said, “which is why I’m here. I figured you’d want to know the most recent developments. Curtis is claiming self-defense. He admits that he was here, at the library, with Jeremy that night. They’d met at a bar in town, as we knew, and had a couple of drinks. Far more than the one he’d told me about in his initial statement.”
“Imagine that,” Ronald said.
“As they drank, Jeremy got increasingly angry at being, in his words, ‘kicked out of the library to wait for’—again in his words—‘some flit of a girl’ to let him examine the documents. He decided he wasn’t going to stand for that, and he’d go back to the library and demand to be let in.”
“Curtis agreed and they drove to the library together in Jeremy’s car. Now, according to Curtis, when he realized the library was closed and no one was around, he wanted to leave.”
“Totally believable,” Connor said sarcastically.
“That will be up to a judge and jury to decide,” Watson said. “Fortunately, not me. It just so happened that Jeremy had a sledgehammer in the trunk of his car.”
“Why?” Bertie asked. “He didn’t seem the handyman type to me.”
“Apparently he was. His wife tells us he liked to fix things around the house. She added that she usually had to call a contractor to unfix them. We found a well-stocked tool box in his car and similar items in the garage.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” I said. “I was wondering where the sledgehammer came from.”
“I don’t tell you a lot of things, Lucy,” Watson said.
I pondered that for a few moments.
“Jeremy got the hammer and broke down the door. Curtis, according to Curtis, was appalled, but he followed Jeremy into the library in order to prevent him from doing more damage.”
“That worked well,” Ronald said.
“Jeremy then forced open Bertie’s desk. When Curtis realized that rather than just looking at the papers, Jeremy intended to steal them, he tried to stop him. They fought”—Watson glanced at Louise Jane—“meaning pushing and shoving at each other and knocking things over. No injuries were found on Jeremy’s face, nor on his hands, which is why we discontinued that line of investigation.”
Louise Jane smirked.
“Jeremy fell and hit his head,” Watson continued. “Panicked at what he’d done, Curtis fled the library, calling Diane to come and pick him up.”
“What, the documents just happened to fall into his pocket?” Bertie said.
“He claims he grabbed them from Jeremy and in his panic took them with him.”
“Hogwash,” Bertie said.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Watson said. “He might well have panicked, and he probably did, but he took the documents with him.”
“But he didn’t show much interest in the pages,” I said, “Not when everyone was here. It was his obvious disinterest that first clued me into suspecting his guilt. What do you suppose changed?”
“After a few drinks,” Watson said, “Jeremy, who should have known better, told Curtis the map might lead to a cache of previously undiscovered Civil War documents. It was Jeremy’s idea to steal the map and follow to where it led, but it was easy enough, I suspect, to get Curtis to agree to the plan. All of which is largely irrelevant. I don’t know what caused the men to argue and get into a fight, but not only did Curtis not report to the police when he’d sobered up and calmed down, he tried to use the documents to his own end. He came to your book club, pretending to know nothing about their whereabouts, and joined the discussion about cracking the code. I think we have a pretty solid case.”
“What did he hope to do with the pages if he did manage to crack the code?” Bertie asked.
“Curtis’s family has long maintained that their ancestor wasn’t a deserter, as everyone believes, but instead an army spy pretending to be a traitor to the cause. They claimed letters that could prove such had been lost.”
“When we first saw the pages,” I said, “Louise Jane suggested they might lead to a report a spy had had to bury. Curtis didn’t seem all that interested at the time, but I bet he said something to Jeremy about his ancestor when they talked later, and Jeremy played it up.”
“What a fool,” Connor said.
“Knowing Curtis,” Charlene said, “I’ll guess he didn’t bother with the diary because he thought it nothing but the ramblings of a fisherman’s wife. A foolish assumption on his part. Therein lay the beginning of the trail.”
“What about Diane?” I asked. “What’s she saying?”
“She says she didn’t tell me she’d picked him up on the library road because I didn’t ask. She told me, in her words, ‘a little white lie’ because Curtis had asked her to. She didn’t ask when word got around about the documents missing.”
“That I believe,” I said. “She didn’t show much interest when they came to book club. She is, if I may be honest, not very smart and not very observant, and not at all interested in anything to do with anyone else. She did what he asked her to do because she didn’t bother to think it through.”
“Diane has been released on bail,” Watson said. “Curtis has been denied.”
“I’ll give Eunice Fitzgerald a call,” Bertie said. “She might want to suggest Diane step down from the library board.”
“Now,” Watson said, “who’d like to go into town for a drink? My treat to thank you all, Lucy in particular, for a job well done.”
Charles was the first to reach the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two weeks later, I was standing on the library steps with Connor, when Janelle Washington and the twins arrived. Connor had been in a budget meeting with Bertie, and I’d stepped outside with him to get some air and enjoy a quick private moment together in the middle of the day.
The girls made a beeline for the children’s construction area. Today was the last day for it. The real work was finished. George and Zack and their crew had packed up all their equipment and driven away, leaving only a scarred patch of earth and a gigantic bill. The landscapers were due to arrive tomorrow to put the lawn back together, and Ronald and his volunteers would take down the play area.
The man with Janelle walked slowly, tilting to one side. Lines of pain were etched into his face, but his dark eyes glowed with warmth as he watched the girls greet Ronald and the other children.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “Lovely day.” The sun was warm on my face and a light salty breeze stirred my hair.
“It is,” Janelle said. “Lucy, Connor. I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Neil.”
We shook hands. Neil’s grip was solid—strong but friendly. “My girls have been talking about nothing but this play area for weeks,” he said. “I think I have two new crew bosses in my family. Grimshaw Contracting had better watch out.”
I smiled and we watched the children play for a few minutes.
“I wanted to come and meet you,” Neil said. “To thank you for all you did for my family.”
“I did nothing, really. We were all desperate to find out what was in that coded letter. What’s happening now?”
“It’s going to take a long, long time to sort out,” he said. “Rick Monaghan has, as you can expect, surrounded himself with lawyers.”
Connor put his arm around my shoulders. “Some o
f Monaghan’s backers on the resort project are getting cold feet and pulling out. They don’t want anything to do with a protracted legal battle. I’m cautiously hopeful that’ll put an end to the project once and for all.”
“He offered us money if we’d drop our claim,” Janelle said.
“Might not be a bad idea,” Connor said. “This could last a long time.”
Neil shook his head firmly. “My family’s been waiting for a hundred and fifty years. It isn’t up to me to take the money and let it go.”
Janelle smiled at her husband. “We’re thinking it would be a lovely spot to have an oceanfront B&B. But early days yet.”
“Do you know what happened to Thaddeus Washington?” I asked. “Why he never went back to get his land grant?”
“Thaddeus was my great-great-grandfather,” Neil said. “My great-grandfather was his oldest son, John. Thaddeus disappeared when John was twelve.”
“Disappeared?” Connor asked.
“Yup. Went out in his boat one calm June night in 1871, telling his wife he’d be back in a couple hours. Boat washed up a few weeks later. Thaddeus was never seen again. My great-great-grandma was left with five kids under twelve and no husband.”
“You think …” I said.
“We think Zebadiah Monaghan killed him. Probably the very night Thaddeus buried the map to the land grant. Family story goes that his eldest son, John, was supposed to go out with his daddy that night, but he’d fallen and twisted his ankle earlier. It’s likely Thaddeus was going to show John where to find the papers. But he never got a chance.” Neil’s face darkened.
“A sad story,” I said.
“No sadder than many others,” Janelle said. “We have two pieces of good news.”
“You tell them, hon,” Neil said. “Watching all that digging going on makes me want to join in.”
We watched him limp away. His daughters squealed in delight when they saw him approaching.
“What?” I said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“First, Cheryl Monaghan has left the real estate company where I work, so I don’t have to worry about her any longer. Things were getting tense, to say the least, between us.”
“Why did she quit?”
“Rick’s company has had to lay off some support staff as he tightens his belt, so she’s gone to help out. She wasn’t a very good realtor in the first place.”
“And the other news?”
“Best of all. Our story hit the papers.”
I nodded. “Big time.” It must have been a slow week for news. The story of a long-hidden land grant, a mysterious disappearance, and a generations-old family feud got a lot of attention in the national media.
“A TV production company called us. They’re doing a major multipart documentary on the history of black families in the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Colony is going to be a big part of that. They’ve hired Neil as a consultant. Imagine that! He loves nothing more than to tell stories passed down through his family, and he’s going to be paid to do it. And now we have Thaddeus’s letters to add.”
“That’s great. I can’t wait to see the program.”
She laughed. “Neil Washington, TV star! There’ll be no living with that man now. We’ve also been approached by another movie producer who’s considering making a movie about Thaddeus, Ethan, and Zebadiah. He’s going to pay us what he calls an option on our story. Meaning money whether or not the movie goes ahead.”
“It’s quite the story,” I said. “I can see it making a great movie. I assume Zebadiah will be the villain. I can’t see that helping Rick’s development project any. Can I have a part? I can play the local librarian, sticking her nose in everything.”
“And I’ll play the mayor,” Connor said, “but only if I can be a bad guy. I’ve always fancied having a mustache I could twirl.”
We turned at a scream of laughter. Neil had plopped one of the bright pink construction hats on his head and picked up a tiny shovel.
“Dig, Daddy, dig!” Charlotte cried while Emily clapped her hands in delight.
“If they keep going like that,” I said to Janelle, “they might well find the passage to the center of the earth.”
“Nothing,” she said, “would surprise me.” She went inside the library, leaving Connor and me alone on the steps once again.
We looked out over the lawn, the children’s play area, the scarred earth soon to be repaired, the boardwalk to the marsh, the long line of tall red pine trees. A flock of Canada geese flew overhead, calling to stragglers to keep up, and children laughed.
“I don’t think you’d make a very convincing villain,” I said at last.
“Probably not. All that mustache twirling must get tiring.” He took a deep breath. “Lucy, I—”
The door behind us flew open. “Connor!” Louise Jane shouted. “Bertie tells me you’ve approved an expenditure for a fall series of historical lectures. You know my rates are entirely reasonable.” She grabbed his arm. “Not to mention my breadth of knowledge. As you’re not doing anything right now, let’s go to Josie’s and talk about it over a coffee. I haven’t had lunch yet.”
She dragged Connor away. I gave a brief thought to wondering what he might have been about to say when Louise Jane interrupted him and decided there was no point in speculating. I laughed and went back to work.
Also available by Eva Gates
Lighthouse Library Mysteries
Something Read Something Dead
The Spook in the Stacks
Reading Up a Storm
Booked for Trouble
By Book or By Crook
Writing as Vicki Delany
Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries
There’s a Murder Afoot
A Scandal in Scarlet
The Cat of the Baskervilles
Body on Baker Street
Elementary, She Read
Year Round Christmas Mysteries
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Hark the Herald Angels Slay
We Wish You a Murderous Christmas
Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen
Ashley Grant Mysteries
Blue Water Hues
White Sand Blues
Constable Molly Smith Mysteries
Unreasonable Doubt
Under Cold Stone
A Cold White Sun
Among the Departed
Negative Image
Winter of Secrets
Valley of the Lost
In the Shadow of the Glacier
Klondike Gold Rush Mysteries
Gold Web
Gold Mountain
Gold Fever
Gold Digger
Also Available By Vicki Delany
More than Sorrow
Burden of Memory
Scare the Light Away
Author Biography
Eva Gates is a national bestselling author who began her writing career as a Sunday writer: a single mother of three high-spirited daughters, with a full-time job as a computer programmer. Now she has more than twenty novels under her belt in the mystery genre, published under the name Vicki Delany. She lives in Ontario. This is her sixth Lighthouse Library mystery.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Vicki Delany
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-233-1
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-234-8
Cover illustration by Joe Burleson
Book desig
n by Jennifer Canzone
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: October 2019
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
