Read on Arrival

by Nora Page

  Cleo picked up her purse and headed down the walkway. Her bookmobile gleamed in the sun, its name sparkling in opalescent green. Rhett lounged on the hood, indiscreetly grooming his hindquarters. Cleo clicked her tongue and he looked up. When she rattled a can of tuna treats from inside, he bounded in to join her. She put his snack in his traveling peach crate, and he hopped in. Cleo browsed the shelves and flipped through a book of five-ingredient casseroles while waiting for Belle to show up.

  A horn honked a few minutes later. Belle pulled up with BOOK IT! The silver Airstream wore a string of blinking, hot-pink lights. Cleo went outside to greet her. She complimented the lights, which were pretty and quiet and didn’t seem to threaten any books.

  “Aren’t they cute?” Belle said. Her pickup had four doors. Where back seats once stood, Lilliput now did. Belle hauled a long ramp from the cargo bed and put it up to Lilliput’s mobile stall. The little horse pranced down, pausing at the end to bob his head and let Cleo ruffle his mane.

  “That ramp is clever too,” Cleo said, following Belle onto the library’s lawn and making sure Belle hooked Lilliput’s lead to a sturdy tree. With the rain, the grass had sprung up. It wouldn’t hurt to have a natural mower go after it, although someone would have to come in later with a not-so-miniature shovel to clean up after the little horse.

  Belle tapped her temple. “That ramp is bookmobile-mascot innovation in action. Now, where are we going? This should be a hoot!”

  They boarded Words on Wheels and drove to a nursing home, where Cleo delivered audiobooks and a stack of large-print novels, and Rhett sopped up loving from friends old and new. They stopped at the homes of some residents who couldn’t get out much anymore. Rhett mostly stayed in the bus for those visits, while Cleo and Belle drank enough ice tea and lemonade to float away. They then went to a work center for adults with special needs and dropped by a halfway house for recent parolees.

  “I didn’t like that last stop,” Belle whispered as she and Cleo left the halfway house. “What if they robbed us?”

  Cleo’s mind flashed to Dixie, running off with Luck and Lore. “Those patrons have never stolen a book,” she said.

  “Not the books,” Belle said as they rounded Words on Wheels. “They’re not valuable. I meant our jewelry.” She placed a protective hand over her long strand of pearls.

  For several miles, Cleo issued a lesson on the invaluable worth of books, reading, and continuing education. “Look at the books we just delivered to the halfway house,” she said as part of her lecture. “They’re helping the residents turn their lives around. Those men have admittedly had troubles, but now some are studying for their GED and learning new skills.”

  “Half of those books we delivered were fiction,” Belle said, her tone suggesting she’d just wrecked Cleo’s argument.

  Cleo persisted. “Fiction can shine a light on the world. It can provide an escape, joy, empathy, compassion—”

  “TV provides an escape too,” Belle said stubbornly. She reclined on the front seat, wedged into the corner, her feet banked against the safety barrier. “I need a nap. Your kind of bookmobiling is a lot of work.”

  Cleo confirmed that it was. “But fulfilling,” she continued in cheerleader tones. “Look how many people you helped this morning. The school event will be lovely too. The kids have a half day today. They’ll be so excited.”

  Belle groaned. “What age are they again? First- through fifth-graders? They’ll be exhausting, but yeah, more fun than the convicts, I suppose.”

  All morning, Cleo had been waiting for an appropriate opening to ask about Belle’s childhood experiences at summer camp. On the way back to town, she stopped at a crossroads and saw her chance.

  “That summer camp you used to go to,” Cleo said. “It’s down the road to the right, isn’t it? The Holloway Road?” Cleo let the bus idle at a stop since no other cars were around. She turned back to Belle.

  Belle sat up and looked around before lowering herself back to reclining. “Yeah, I guess. It’s been a few years, to say the least.”

  Cleo eased the bus forward. “I recently learned that Dixie Huddleston went to that camp. Is that where you first met her?” Cleo glanced in her mirror to see Belle jerk upright.

  “Cleo Watkins, you are as persistent as a mosquito! Why do you keep bugging me about Dixie?” Belle’s tone was light but tinged in vexation. “What are you trying to do, pin a murder on me? That’s sure thinking outside the box, but not the way I like it.”

  “She bullied you,” Cleo said softly.

  “She bullied you too, keeping out that overdue book,” Belle countered. “She bullied a lot of people, and bullies should get their comeuppance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check out the back of this bus. I see room for improvement. It’s all cluttered! Too many books.”

  Cleo didn’t approve of changing seats while the bus was moving, but she let Belle go. She drove slowly back to town, her mind spinning as fast as her wheels. Bullies did deserve comeuppance. They didn’t deserve to be murdered.

  * * *

  “How’d it go?” Leanna asked as Cleo stepped out of Words on Wheels that afternoon. The schoolyard was already bustling with preparations for Fall Fest.

  Cleo started to answer, but a yawn took over. Belle wasn’t the only one who’d needed a nap. After dropping Belle off, Cleo had gone home and sacked out on the sofa with Rhett. She’d sneaked out while he was still snoozing. Her cat liked children, but not in hyped-up crowds.

  “Our bookmobile morning went well enough,” Cleo said. “I tired Belle out and myself too.” She told Leanna about their stops, glossing over Belle’s talk of “decluttering” her bookmobile. “The school festival will go well too, I’m sure.”

  “I hope,” Leanna said, sounding the opposite of her words. “It looks like BOOK IT! is back in party mode.” Lights flashed over at the Airstream. Lilliput wore a sparkly crown, and Belle had restocked her supply of sudsy water buckets and giant bubble wands.

  “The kids will like the bubbles and Lilliput,” Cleo said, “but they’ll love what you’ve put together too.

  To compete in bookmobile cuteness, Leanna had brought twinkling LED lights and paper banners shaped like autumn leaves. She also had activity tables where the kids could make origami animals and write and draw their own stories. Of course, the children and their parents could also check out books. Cleo had a stack of forms to apply for library cards, although she liked to think that everyone in her town would already have a card.

  Since Leanna seemed to have the setup covered, Cleo toured the other stands. The school cafeteria had set up a cart doling out healthy snacks and hot apple cider. A local artist would give instructions on braiding friendship bracelets. Another local artist was setting up a row of easels stocked with paper. Iris Hays. Cleo hadn’t spoken to Iris since Dixie’s wake. She wondered if Iris remembered or if her tipsiness had blurred it out. She was heading Iris’s way when she heard her name.

  “Cleo!” Pat Holmes chugged up the sidewalk, waving. “I need to talk to you!” Pat reversed course to come in the schoolyard gate. Cleo walked back to join her. They met up just as the bell rang and kids ran out in a screaming wave. Cleo smiled, watching the kids ripple outward. Some bolted straight to Lilliput. Others wanted first dibs at Leanna’s activity stations and the games the school had set up.

  “More bad news,” Pat said glumly. “One of my cleaners got a note on her windshield this morning. It mentioned her and her husband by name, telling them to clean up their act or they’d be scrubbing floors six feet under. Isn’t that awful? The lady won’t go on any jobs alone anymore, and I don’t blame her.” Pat took a breath and looked bleakly out across the schoolyard. “What have you heard? Do you have any new clues?”

  Cleo had already reported on her visit with Amy-Ray and receiving her copy of Luck and Lore. She thought about the book now and mentioned it to Pat. “I wish I’d had a chance to read it last night. I was so worn out, I fell asleep in front of th
e TV news and then went straight to bed.”

  “Will you replace the missing version with that one?” Pat asked.

  “I know it sounds silly, but that book’s not the same as getting back the library’s original copy,” Cleo said. “Please don’t tell the police or that newspaper reporter—they’ll say I’m obsessed—but I want the original. It’s still missing, still messing up my rosters.”

  “You can sue Dixie’s estate for the overdue fine,” Pat said.

  For a moment, Cleo thought Pat had made a joke, but Pat looked serious and worried.

  “I don’t know about this event,” Pat said. “Should the school be putting this on when there’s a killer around?”

  Cleo smiled at her, wishing she had something to raise Pat’s spirits and hopes. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. No one’s bothered the school. I was heading over to see Iris. Do you want to join me?”

  Pat declined. “I don’t think she likes me after that trouble at the Pancake Mill. I’ll go to Words on Wheels. I need a new book. We’re not actually reading a book for the Who-Done-Its.”

  Cleo’s head was still shaking, thinking about the bookless book-club meeting, when she reached Iris.

  The artist greeted her with a grin. “Why’d Pat run off? There’re enough easels for you both to draw.” She flipped back the paper on the tallest easel. “I have a sketch going already. I call it ‘Just Deserts.’ ”

  Cleo cocked her head and squinted at ink scribbled in freehand loops.

  Iris pointed to the various blobs. “There’s the woman, lying on the pantry floor,” Iris said. “There’s the bees …”

  Cleo drew back. “Iris, this is a school event! This isn’t appropriate!”

  Iris smiled serenely. “We all have our outlets. You have your books. I have my art.” Iris muttered words inappropriate for a schoolyard, picked up a pen, and added a dark cloud of scribbles over the prone figure.

  Cleo backed away, saying she shouldn’t keep Iris from her work. She stopped by a few other stands and then returned to the bookmobile, thinking Pat had had the right idea by avoiding Iris.

  Pat was reading in the back of Words on Wheels. “You’ve had a lot of customers already,” Pat said. “Kids, parents, and teachers. Your friend Leanna checked them all out since I didn’t know how. I’m not being very helpful—with this or the investigation. I keep thinking, what if the person is right in front of us? Speaking of which, did you see that Jefferson is here?”

  Cleo hadn’t. She followed Pat’s pointing to beyond the schoolyard fence. Now that she saw him, he was hard to miss. He wore a mime costume in black and white and held a red balloon. Cleo shivered. Iris, Belle, Jefferson … all they needed was Amy-Ray and Jacquelyn, and all her main suspects would be in plain sight. She looked down to the closer distance and saw Leanna bouncing back and forth between tables. “I better go help Leanna,” Cleo said. “Stay and relax.”

  “I could use some time with books,” Pat admitted.

  Cleo looked forward to that too, book work in her case. She helped Leanna with loads of checkouts and chatted with parents, kids, and teachers about their book selections. Cleo had moved over to Leanna’s origami table and was attempting to fold paper cranes with a fourth-grader, when she saw Iris stomping into Words on Wheels. Cleo hoped the artist would be nice to Pat. She considered going to mediate, but Mrs. K. strode up.

  “This is ridiculous,” Mrs. K. said.

  Cleo looked down at her mangled paper crane. “The origami?” she asked. “It is a bit advanced.” She didn’t mention that the fourth-grader had just folded a crane and an elephant with no problems at all.

  The principal frowned. “I meant the silly superstitions swirling around. Parents, shop owners, teachers—everyone—even here at a school where people should know better. The whole town’s fixating on bad luck and omens. It’s absurd.”

  Cleo put down her failed crane, thinking cranes were supposed to be good luck. “I can see why people are frightened,” she said. “There’s a killer. The threatening notes are connected to Dixie’s death.”

  “Are they?” Mrs. K. said. “How do you know? Is that fact, Cleo, or a supposition?”

  Cleo again felt like she was back in school, getting scolded for faulty logic or math mistakes. She was about to contend that it was fact. Then she reconsidered. The coffin note had been beside Dixie, but there was nothing to prove the killer put it there. “I don’t know,” Cleo admitted.

  “Well, I know,” Mrs. K. said. “I know that whoever is leaving the threatening notes around town is a common bully who needs to be ignored.” She firmed her already rigid shoulders and looked out over the crowd, as if ready to round up bullies and send them to detention. “I’m going over to check on that other so-called bookmobile. All those soap bubbles are not appropriate around books, if there even are any books over there. Want to come?”

  Cleo wouldn’t mind hearing Mrs. K. stand up against bubbles around books. She tagged along. They were nearly to BOOK IT! when a scream cut across the joyful yells.

  “Help! Help—someone help!”

  Cleo spun around. She saw parents running, kids fleeing, a mini-horse galloping, and her beautiful bookmobile filling with smoke.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cleo wrapped her coat and arms tight to her chest. Her heart thumped hard, and her eyes still stung. A fireman in full gear stalked the aisle of Words on Wheels, a massive extinguisher strapped to his back. Cleo prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. Smoke was awful enough for books. Fire and water would be devastating.

  On the other side of the schoolyard fence, the crowd had grown. Kids ran in excited circles. Their parents clung to the fence rail, chatting excitedly. The young newspaper reporter had arrived to capture the aftermath of the chaos. Cleo saw sunlight glint against his zoom lens and looked quickly away. Only Lilliput seemed nonchalant, busily munching down the tall grass along the fence. Belle stood nearby, slightly apart from everyone except her horse, her attention on her phone.

  Cleo glanced again at her bookmobile but just as quickly turned away. “How do you feel?” she asked Pat. She and Pat sat on the open back of an ambulance. Pat huddled under a thin, reflective blanket, the kind handed out in natural disasters. The crinkly sheet reminded Cleo of the microwavable snacks her grandkids liked. For a second, a welcome flash of panic struck her. Her grandkids would be coming for their Thanksgiving visit in just a few weeks. She needed to stock up on some of their favorite foods.

  Pat rustled and readjusted the covering over her shoulders. “I’m fine,” she said shakily. She gripped Cleo’s hand, squeezing hard. Cleo’s arthritic knuckles protested, but she didn’t mind. She was glad Pat was okay. It was Iris she worried about more.

  The artist lay on a stretcher several yards away. Two EMTs hovered over her, tending to a gash on her head and plying her with oxygen. More sirens approached.

  Pat gave a raspy cough. “So much smoke,” she said. “I’m sorry, Cleo! I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s okay,” Cleo reassured her again. “It was just a smoke bomb, they say.” Just! Who would do such a thing? Who would hurt Words on Wheels, and at a school fest, no less? Cleo gave thanks again that no kids were on board. Her stomach tightened, taking in the schoolyard, now empty except for emergency responders and the immediately affected.

  “Thank goodness!” Pat exclaimed. “Look, Iris is coming to.”

  Iris’s hand fluttered to her forehead. Cleo exhaled in relief. Pat and Iris had been in the bookmobile when smoke started billowing out near the driver’s seat. Iris had collapsed in fits of coughing, but Pat managed to pull her out the back emergency exit. In the process, Pat had twisted her wrist, and Iris had banged her head. Before the EMTs had shooed her away from Iris’s side, Cleo had heard the word concussion volleyed around.

  Pat bit her lip. “I tugged her too hard. It was the adrenaline. It’s my fault she fell and went down on her head. I messed up again.”

  “You did the right thing!” Cleo as
sured her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leanna pacing around Words on Wheels. A fireman looked out. Leanna gestured for him to pull down all the windows. He did, starting at the back, smoke puffing out as he went.

  “Tell me again what happened,” Cleo said. She kept hoping that words might shift and bring sense to the situation.

  Pat released Cleo’s hand and adjusted her crinkly blanket. “Like I said, Iris and I were already upset,” Pat said. “Iris had picked out an art book from the New Reads shelf and found one of those coffin notes in it. She started complaining that it was all Dixie’s fault. Of course, it wasn’t! Dixie didn’t leave the notes. She was a victim! I went up to see, and then suddenly there was this pop and smoke started coming at us. We couldn’t breathe! I dragged Iris to the back, where the air was better, and we got the door open, and …”

  Pat’s shoulders rose in an apologetic shrug that sagged back to a slump. “I should have gotten us out the front door. It was closer but smokier.”

  “You did great,” Cleo assured her. They watched in silence until Gabby strode up, bringing a glum Leanna with her.

  The young deputy nodded briskly to Pat. “Mrs. Holmes, let’s get you into the other ambulance. It’s going to the hospital.”

  Pat protested, but Gabby insisted. “Do it for the library,” she said. “I’m sure Miss Cleo wants to make sure you’re okay. You and Iris can ride together and keep each other company.”

  Pat shot Cleo a worried look. ‘She’ll blame me,” Pat said before she let herself be led off by a husky EMT.

  Leanna took Pat’s place at the back of the unmoving ambulance.

  Gabby gave them what was surely meant to be a reassuring smile. “Everything will be fine. We’ll just need to search and process the bookmobile and get your statements. I’d like to know who went in the bookmobile both this afternoon and earlier in the day.”

  Gabby was called off by the chief. Leanna produced a notebook from her backpack purse. The backpack was calico cloth, and the notebook had a cartoon cat on the front, appropriately reading a book. They filled up two pages with names. Leanna doodled on the next page, a wiggly mass of flowers all connected by the same line. Cleo was reminded of Iris’s disturbing drawing.