Read on Arrival

by Nora Page

  “Death would be her ultimate atonement,” a female voice proclaimed, and Cleo hazily decided they’d reached the book’s final murder. Points and counterpoints volleyed around the long table. Cleo tried to focus, but her mind kept swinging to Dixie, her main distraction. Dixie wanted atonement. Cleo wanted her book.

  She allowed herself to fantasize again while it was still possible. Cleo pictured herself victorious, Luck and Lore in her hands. She’d speed straight to the library and put it back in its rightful place on the shelf. No, she thought, taking a sip of tepid coffee. That wouldn’t do. Dixie might grab it again if her luck turned. Cleo would have a display case made, from shatterproof glass and secured by lock and key.

  She glanced at her watch. The Who-Done-Its should be wrapping up soon. Then they’d all go out to Words on Wheels, rouse a snoozing Rhett, and pick a new mystery. After that, Cleo, Henry, and the pets would head over to Dixie’s. Excitement mixed with dread shot up Cleo’s middle.

  “You’re awful! That’s terrible and off-topic!” Another voice—female, loud, and angry—jolted Cleo from her fantasies. She blinked and refocused. Pat Holmes sat a few seats down, red-faced and sputtering like a boiling berry.

  Across the table from Pat, Iris Hays grinned wide and toothy, an unusual expression on the artist, whose mood usually mirrored her murky landscape paintings. “I am on topic, Pat, darling,” Iris said, touching choppy ink-jet hair, teased on top like a windblown bird’s nest. “It’s just like in the book—a treacherous, greedy villain goes looking for atonement and redemption, but it’s too late for her. She gets what she deserves. Tragic? I think not.” Iris cut a thick wedge of pancakes and chewed with puffed, pleased cheeks.

  Pat sputtered. “Stop it! You’re wrong and awful!”

  With a sinking feeling, Cleo realized she’d let the book discussion derail. She clinked her spoon to her mug. When that failed to cut through the arguing, she rose and waved the book.

  Eight sets of eyes turned her way. “Good,” Cleo said brightly, as if they’d all just engaged in spirited literary debate. “So we’ve reached the end? We’re all done?”

  “Not until Dixie Huddleston croaks like she promises!” Iris said, aiming a pitcher of batter at a smoking skillet. She recklessly poured a pancake the size of a deflated basketball.

  Pat gasped and burst up so abruptly her chair tipped backward, banging another diner. Chaos ensued. A pitcher crashed to the floor, shattering and splattering. Someone yelped in pain from a palm touching a griddle. Voices rose and a pancake flew, whether accidentally flipped or hurled intentionally, Cleo couldn’t tell.

  “I’m done with this drama. I’m done with Dixie Huddleston,” Iris declared. She abandoned her oversized pancake, threw down her napkin, and stomped toward the door.

  Pat stood, slumped and sobbing. A waitress came running.

  Cleo sunk low in her seat. She’d lost control of more than the book discussion. She’d lost control of the Who-Done-Its. Again.

  * * *

  “I swear, I’m going to restrict all y’all to outdoor meetings for easier cleanup.” Mary-Rose Garland shook her head in exaggerated weariness. Mary-Rose, Cleo’s best friend since infancy, was also the owner of the Pancake Mill and the gracious hostess of several local book clubs, among which she claimed the Who-Done-Its were the most prone to high emotions and food fights.

  “Reading arouses passions,” Cleo said, rehashing an old but truthful line.

  Mary-Rose sniffed. “Word Warriors and Dante’s Devotees manage to maintain their table manners. Babes and Books are lovely guests. They’d never hurl pancakes or tip over the buckwheat batter, which is the most difficult batter to clean up, mind you. Even the infants in Babes and Books are well behaved. Little angels, every single one of them.”

  Cleo loved babies as much as the next devoted grandmother, but she suspected Mary-Rose of exaggerating. What little one didn’t love throwing flapjacks?

  Waitress Desiree swept in with a mop for the floor and tissues for Pat, who was beet-faced and apologizing and offering to do the mopping herself. Three members comforted her. The other three members had hurried after Iris.

  “Pat’s probably never raised her voice or tipped pancake batter in anger in her entire life, bless her heart,” Cleo said. “I’m sure she feels awful about that spill. She’s a professional cleaner.”

  Saying this reminded Cleo that she needed to reschedule Pat’s cleaning company for periodic library visits. Before the toppled tree took the library out of commission, Pat’s “ladies” had come by monthly to make the place sparkle. Pat often tagged along. To help and supervise, Pat said, although she usually spent the time chatting with Cleo and relaying her woes.

  Pat had troubles on top of troubles, so much so that folks—Cleo included—often stuck “Poor” onto her name as if it were part of it. Poor Pat had recently celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday with a kidney stone the size of a kumquat. Her knees acted up in the heat and the cold. She had unexplainable aches and a husband who took off on long golfing excursions. And now she hunched in pained shame.

  “Pat and Dixie are childhood friends, like you and me,” Cleo said to a still sputtering Mary-Rose. “You know how Dixie Huddleston can evoke strong emotions.”

  Cleo had told Mary-Rose about Dixie’s promise regarding the overdue book. As a good and blunt friend, Mary-Rose informed Cleo she was heading for a duping.

  Mary-Rose chuckled and patted her loose but elegant bun, silver with highlights of natural ginger red. A rosy knit dress billowed from under her spotless white apron. “Oh, I do know about Dixie and riling up emotions. I know about defending a friend too. In fact, Cleo Jane Watkins, I should step in right now and forbid you from running off to make a fool of yourself. You know Dixie’s out to trick you. I saw that newspaper interview. ‘Librarian on the Warpath.’ What a headline. Dixie’s not going to let that stand.”

  “That was a highlighted section heading,” Cleo mumbled, as if that made it better. The paper’s new reporter was young and seemed to have tabloid aspirations.

  Mary-Rose rolled her eyes. “Tell you what, after these rowdy mystery readers leave, you and Henry stay and have some nice pie and coffee. The special’s honey chess pie … your favorite.”

  Most pies were Cleo’s favorites. She did love chess pie, especially the honey variety, with its sweet custard thickened by a touch of cornmeal. She was tempted. Very tempted. However, silly, absurd hope still burned within her. Getting back Luck and Lore would be the icing on her cake for the grand reopening. With her rosters clear and old business tidied up, she’d truly feel free to step aside from her circulation-desk duties and continue captaining Words on Wheels.

  “Dixie is going around saying she’s dying,” Cleo rationalized yet again. “That’s what has Pat upset. Of course, I hope Dixie’s wrong, but she wants to settle accounts. One of those is her library account. I may even forgive part of her fine, if she hands over the book nicely without any trouble.”

  Mary-Rose shot Cleo a loving yet pitying look. “Dixie needs to settle something with Iris Hays if Iris’s wishing her dead over breakfast and books. What’s going on? You didn’t hear what sparked that talk, did you?”

  Cleo said she must have drifted off. “Thinking about this month’s book,” she fibbed.

  “Sure you were.” Mary-Rose grinned. “Thinking about getting a certain book, more likely. You are obsessed, Cleo. I’ll be reading all about it in next week’s paper. ‘Local librarian’s obsession leads to extreme embarrassment. Best friend says she told her so.’”

  Cleo raised her chin in an attempt at dignity. Except for absent Iris, the mystery readers were returning to collect their coats, books, and notes. They left hefty tips on the table for Desiree.

  “I like this bunch,” Desiree whispered as she trundled by with cash and cleanup items in hand.

  Mary-Rose sighed. “Well, Desiree likes y’all. Guess I can’t ban the Who-Done-Its yet.”

  “Next time we’ll behave,” Cleo
said. “Speaking of next time, I have to go help with the December book selection.” She gave Mary-Rose a hug and hurried to catch up with the members gathered by the door.

  “I have interesting choices for next month,” Cleo said brightly. She’d brought along some classics, a new bestseller, and several mysteries set in small towns with enterprising amateur sleuths. She hoped they’d pick the sleuth with a feline sidekick.

  Pat blushed afresh. Others looked down or away, scuffing their shoes and furtively glancing out to the parking area, a gravel lot mostly masked by leafy palms. After a minute, their de facto leader spoke, a steel-haired school principal who, even among friends, went by the moniker Mrs. K.—preferable to the “Mrs. Kranky” nickname her surname Krankovitz inspired among students.

  “Well …,” Mrs. K. said with uncharacteristic hesitancy, “we thought we might shake things up a little next month.”

  “Shake things up?” In the awkward silence that followed, Cleo heard music. She cocked her head. The tune grew louder, closer. Cleo recognized the melody: “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Fiddles sawed and wailed. A cherry-red pickup bounced in, hauling a silver Airstream. Cleo’s stomach clenched. So did her fists.

  “Ooh! I hope Belle has that little horse with her!” a voice cried amidst similar excited statements. “He’s the best!”

  The Who-Done-Its streamed out, leaving Pat behind to admit what Cleo already guessed. The mystery readers would get their next book from Belle Beauchamp and BOOK IT!

  * * *

  “She seems nice,” Henry said as Cleo navigated Words on Wheels toward Dixie Huddleston’s.

  Cleo stomped the gas. She took a deep breath and decelerated. She was being petty. The Who-Done-Its could choose any book they wanted, from wherever and whomever they wanted. Belle Beauchamp could be friendly and flirty to whomever she wanted too. So what if she called Henry a “cutie pie” and chatted him up and made Mr. Chaucer topple in roly-poly pug joy when she showered him with tummy tickles?

  “She said she might apply for the job at your library?” Henry continued.

  The bookmobile surged. Cleo eased up and took another calming breath. “Yes, Mercer Whitty, our board president, is smitten with her. However, she has, uh … questionable ideas regarding libraries.”

  They’d come to a four-way stop, so Cleo could turn to face Henry. He sat on the front bench seat, a pug snuggled on one side, a Persian purring on the other. He was buckled up and had a hand protectively looped over each pet.

  “She thinks books clutter up a place,” Cleo said.

  Cleo’s mood improved when Henry visibly shuddered. Her gentleman friend owned and lived above The Gilded Page, an antiquarian bookstore packed floor to ceiling with books. In the back, Henry had a book surgery, where he repaired and tended to old and wounded texts.

  “She rips off perfectly good covers and replaces them so they’ll match a color scheme,” Cleo added, surging on toward Dixie’s.

  Henry groaned. “She asked me to give a talk on bookbinding at the Claymore Library,” he said. “A workshop.”

  “Maybe you can change her ways,” Cleo said. She doubted it. People didn’t easily change their ways. Maybe they couldn’t even if they tried. Her stomach gave a little flip. Like Dixie. Once a trickster, always a trickster. They were nearing Dixie’s street. Cleo could still turn the bus around and head back to the Pancake Mill. Except Mary-Rose was right, Cleo admitted to herself: she was a teensy bit obsessed.

  She turned up Mulberry Lane, a street known for its wide lots and pretty homes, each vying to outdo the neighbors. None could compete with Dixie’s place, the last stop on the dead-end lane. Peach orchards and graceful live oaks framed manicured gardens and a Victorian home even more stunning than the setting.

  “My, this is where we’re going?” Henry said. “When I first moved to Catalpa Springs, I saw this house in a tourism brochure and went looking for it. It’s magnificent, isn’t it? Look at all that gingerbread trim and those turrets.”

  Cleo murmured agreement. She was concentrating on turning the long bus around in a many-point turn. No matter what the outcome of their visit, Cleo anticipated wanting a speedy departure.

  They left the pets snuggling in Rhett’s peach crate. “You’re better off here, Rhett,” Cleo told her cat, who frowned but purred as he kneaded his canine friend’s back. Mr. Chaucer’s eyes drooped in contentment.

  At the gate, Cleo and Henry paused to take in the view. The house sat atop a pedestal foundation of pale stone. Wide steps led to a rounded porch dripping in ornate scrollwork. Three turrets in varying sizes gave a fairytale air, as did the Mardi Gras paint colors: gold, deep green, and rich purple in an array of hues. Spiky iron banisters ringed the balconies and upper decks. A top-heavy roof crowned it all, capped with a widow’s walk.

  “A family called Peacock lived here when I was young,” Cleo said.

  “A fitting name.” Henry ran his hand along a twined-vine metal gate. It creaked open.

  Cleo told him how she and Mary-Rose used to sneak into the gardens and orchards as kids, imagining the turreted house was their castle.

  Henry, who’d meticulously renovated the former pharmacy that became his bookstore, agreed that this was a fine fantasy home. “Unless you’re the painter having to touch up all that trim,” he said. “Or the gardener or cleaner. This place would be a lot of work.”

  They climbed the front steps, to a cast-iron bell hanging by the door. Cleo took a few more deep breaths before grasping the ringer and striking hard. The ring echoed in her ears, but only a talkative jay responded. Cleo’s anxiety and excitement—along with her silly optimism—dimmed.

  “Mary-Rose told me so,” she said glumly.

  “Now, now,” said Henry, ever an optimist. “Let’s not give up. Her car’s over there by the carriage garage. Maybe she’s in the back and can’t hear the bell. This porch winds around. Let’s take a peek. If nothing else, we can check out this amazing house.”

  Cleo half-listened as Henry gushed about architectural features: flat-sawn balusters, spindle work, and decorative brackets. She paused at windows, peering in, frustrated by pretty lace curtains blocking her view.

  “Ah!” Henry exclaimed as they rounded the curve. “Look, the back door is open. She’s likely waiting for us. Waiting for you, that is.”

  “Waiting to play her joke,” Cleo muttered. She looked around for a mocking note calling her a fool. She saw none. To their left, steps led down to a brick footpath winding toward a squatty cottage. To their right, a scroll-trimmed screen door hung wide. The glass-paned door behind it was open a crack.

  “I’ll knock,” Henry offered.

  But Cleo stepped up. This was her folly. If Dixie was waiting to laugh in anyone’s face, it should be hers. Cleo balled her fist and took aim at the doorframe. The chatty jay landed nearby. His song had changed to a sharp chirp. Cleo thought of Dixie’s fear of bird-induced bad luck.

  “If that jay flies inside, Dixie’s likely to keel over in fright,” Cleo said, trying for levity she didn’t feel. She sniffed. “Do you smell smoke?” Cleo knocked and pushed the door open, calling out Dixie’s name.

  She was momentarily dazzled. Glittery crystals and light-catchers hung from the windows and ceilings. Shamrocks, horseshoes, and ladybug charms filled the walls. Dixie had decorated in a dizzying array of luck.

  Henry, behind her, exclaimed, “The stove! Fire!”

  Cleo gasped. Smoke seeped from a pot and slithered from the oven. A flame licked the bottom of the pot. They yelled Dixie’s name as they burst inside. Cleo rushed to shut off the burner. She opened the oven door. When smoke billowed out, she slammed it shut again and hurried to the nearest window. She was leaning over the sink, trying to heft up the heavy old glass, when a bee buzzed her head, wings touching her nose. With a yelp, Cleo let the window fall back. She swatted wildly, sending the bee and smoke swirling. She turned to Henry to tell him. He stood strangely still, a hand on the long, marble-topped kitchen island, a
n ear tilted toward the front of the house.

  “Listen,” he said. “Hear that?”

  “There’s an angry bee by the sink.” But when Cleo tuned in, she realized a single bee couldn’t create such a sound, a white noise of angry vibrations. Cleo and Henry stared at each other, and she saw her rising fear reflected in his eyes.

  On tiptoeing feet they slowly walked the room, ears perked.

  “It’s coming from here,” Cleo whispered, stopping by a narrow door with a cut-glass knob and a skeleton key dangling from it. Cleo reached for the knob. Henry put out his hand to stop her. “Let me.”

  He tugged and turned the knob. When the door wouldn’t budge, he tried the key. Cleo mentally chanted, Hurry, hurry, until the lock turned with a metallic click and the door creaked open. They peered warily inside.

  The pantry had neatly arranged shelves and a diamond-paned window at the end. It would have been pretty, except for the creeping mass of bees swarming the window and Dixie Huddleston lying twisted on the floor.

  Chapter Four

  Henry jerked the door shut. Just as quickly, he flung it back open. “Stay here,” he said, but Cleo wasn’t about to let him go in alone. She pushed in behind him, her eyes fixed on Dixie.

  “She doesn’t look good,” Cleo said. Dixie looked worse than not good. Her face was frozen in a grimace of pure fear. Her hands clenched in fists. Her eyes stared, unblinking, toward the high ceiling. Cleo stomach turned. She looked up to catch her breath. A crack ran across the plaster. A bee walked along it, upside down and waggling its stinger in a dance.

  Cleo closed her eyes. She murmured a prayer, for Dixie’s sake and to calm her quaking knees. When she opened her lids, she saw Henry kneeling by Dixie.