A Murder Between the Pages

by Amy Lillard

  Her best friend smiled in return and headed for the storeroom.

  Arlo looked back to Courtney. She hadn’t stopped working, hadn’t stopped wiping down the espresso machine and cleaning all the little pieces, and she hadn’t stopped crying. Arlo glanced toward the book club and caught Helen’s gaze. She knew the look on her guardian’s face well. Poor darling.

  Fern looked from Helen to Arlo, then over to Courtney. Before anyone could say anything at all, the woman was on her feet and marching toward the coffee bar.

  “Courtney, dear,” Fern started when she stopped at the bar’s straight edge. “I’m not quite sure you’re ready to come back to work.”

  Arlo was not exactly surprised by the caring tone of Fern’s voice; she knew Fern had it in her. It just wasn’t often people got to see the kindness firsthand.

  “I’m okay,” Courtney said. “Really.”

  Fern shook her head. “I don’t mind working,” she parried, still using that same gentle voice. “After all, I learned to make the coffee drinks for this very reason.”

  “I heard it was so you could get free coffee,” Courtney said. The words almost came across as a joke, and maybe they would have, had her face not been shiny with tears.

  “Well, yeah. Coffee and times just like this when somebody needs to leave for something important.”

  Whether it was the tone of Fern’s voice or the fact that one of the town’s grumpiest residents was being so kind to her, the week seemed to catch up to Courtney all at once. Her face crumpled, and her tears fell with a force. Her breath caught on a sob, and her knees buckled. Fern was behind the counter in a shot, supporting the girl with one arm across her shoulders as she urged her toward the barstools on the other side of the counter.

  “What happened?” Chloe was at the door of the stockroom, somehow having heard Courtney’s breakdown.

  “I’m okay,” Courtney said. Her voice sounded anything but. “I’m fine, really.” Only someone with a heart of ice would’ve believed what she was saying. She could barely speak, she was crying so, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  Arlo moved toward her, laying a hand on her back and rubbing reassuringly. “It’s okay if you need to go home, Courtney. In fact, I think I must insist that you do.”

  “I said I would come in.”

  “You can change your mind,” Arlo said.

  Courtney grabbed a napkin off the stack on the counter and wiped at her face. It was a futile effort, seeing as how the minute the tears were gone, they were replaced with others. She grabbed another napkin and blew her nose, then laid her head down on her folded arms. Sobs shook her shoulders, and she was saying something, though no one could figure out what it was. Arlo looked around the group, but everyone shook their heads. Arlo smoothed a hand down the back of Courtney’s soft blonde hair.

  “Let me call your mom,” Arlo said.

  Courtney wailed something that sounded a lot like no but didn’t bother to lift her head.

  “I can run you home,” Chloe said.

  Courtney finally lifted her head. “No,” she said. “I’m fine.” No one dared contradict her declaration, though Arlo suspected Fern had wanted to. Thankfully the lady kept her tongue and allowed Courtney her time.

  “It’s just… It’s just everyone talks about him like he’s really guilty,” Courtney said. “But I know better. I know he didn’t do it. Dylan didn’t kill my sister.”

  Helen caught Arlo’s gaze over the top of Courtney’s head. Her guardian raised her eyebrows in question, though said nothing. It was the same thing she had been telling Mads the day before.

  “You seem so certain, love,” Camille crooned. She rubbed one of Courtney’s arms through the sleeve of her blouse. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just am.” Courtney’s whole demeanor had changed as Camille had asked the question.

  What made her so certain that Dylan Wright was innocent? Arlo had no idea, but she could tell that Courtney believed what she was saying. Whether or not it was true was another story altogether.

  “There has to be some reason,” Fern prodded.

  “He’s innocent,” Courtney said. Her voice had started to rise in tone and a few people peeked out from between the bookshelves see what was going on.

  Arlo shook her head and motioned for everybody to go back to what they were doing, but she didn’t say anything to alert Courtney to everyone’s interest.

  “Well, I think it’s marvelous that you have such faith in him,” Camille started. “Especially with all the witness statements coming in saying otherwise.”

  Arlo started to ask Camille what she knew about witness statements, then remembered that the woman was a retired high school English teacher. And a master manipulator. She was trying to get Courtney to reveal what she knew through the art of complementary persuasion.

  Courtney seemed to think about what Camille said for a moment, and she blew her nose again and turned to Arlo. “You’re right,” she said.

  It wasn’t often a woman was told that. “I’m right?”

  “Yes.” Courtney slid from the barstool and started untying the back of her apron. “You’re right. It was too early for me to come back.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Chloe said.

  Though Arlo wondered how they would get through. Fern’s coffee could launch rockets into space. Arlo wasn’t sure how much longer the good people of Sugar Springs would have to be subjected to the black sludge that she herself made and called coffee.

  “Thank you,” Courtney said. Instead of hanging her apron on the hook just inside the door next to the coffee bar, she wadded it up and set it on the counter. “Maybe next week,” she said, and she started for the door. She paused there before actually leaving. “Dylan’s paying penance for…well, he says he’s got to pay for his sins. But he didn’t kill Haley. That much I know for a fact.”

  Arlo, Chloe, and the book club ladies watched her head out into the warm Mississippi sunshine. Though the day looked cheery and bright, she knew that Courtney was dying inside. But hopefully some of the beautifulness of the day would rub off on her and lift her spirits. Just a bit would be nice; any part of it would be good.

  “Poor dear,” Camille said.

  “Poor dear’s right,” Fern said.

  The ladies made their way back to the reading nook.

  “Gimme a kiss,” Faulkner chirped.

  Helen obliged him, bending close to the cage and pursing her lips so he could nip them as was their usual custom. Arlo had grown tired of warning her guardian against the action. She supposed if Helen wanted to kiss the bird, who was she to stop her?

  “She just seems so positive that Dylan can’t be the one,” Fern said.

  “I never taught him,” Camille said, albeit a little unnecessarily. She hadn’t taught in years. “But I did teach his father. He was a right nice fellow.”

  Arlo supposed “right nice fellow” was as good a description as any for Dr. Robert Wright, Dylan’s father. He kept half the citizens of Sugar Springs in good health, doing everything from delivering babies to giving flu shots. Everyone had been hopeful that Dylan would take his place whenever Dr. Robert decided to retire. Of course, Dylan couldn’t do that if he was behind bars for killing his girlfriend. But still Arlo agreed. She was with everyone else who seemed more than skeptical that Dylan Wright was guilty of killing Haley Adams. It just seemed so out of character for him.

  “They said Ted Bundy was very polite as well,” Chloe said. All heads swiveled to her. She shrugged, then checked her watch and gasped. “I gotta go,” she said.

  She took her apron off and grabbed Courtney’s as well and hung them both by the door. She ran her fingers down each one to knock out any unnecessary wrinkles. Chloe’s apron would be there tomorrow when she came back to work, and Courtney’s would be there for whenever she decided she could
get her life back on track. But Arlo and Chloe would give her as long as she needed in order to make that happen. Even if they had to keep drinking Fern’s jet fuel coffee.

  Arlo checked her own watch. “Go?”

  Chloe shook her head and blew her bangs out of her face. “Jayden’s teacher wants to talk with me. Evidently, he’s been acting out a little this week. I feel it’s due to the move.”

  “The move?” Fern asked. “He hasn’t moved yet.”

  Chloe shot her a look. “Not helping.” And she went to the back to get her purse. Arlo waved goodbye to Chloe as she made her way out the door, then turned her attention to the customer who needed ringing out at the cash register.

  “I think we should call Sam,” Camille said. That got her attention.

  “Why do you need to call Sam?”

  Camille smiled in a self-satisfied, yet private way that made Arlo think she should duck and run for cover. “He’s just so knowledgeable about such things.”

  Arlo thought back to the last thing they were talking about. It had been Dr. Wright and Dylan, but apparently in saying goodbye to Chloe and ringing out a customer, she had missed a quantum leap to a different subject.

  “About what?” Arlo asked.

  “Murder and things. He seems very knowledgeable about that sort of thing. Dead bodies and science.” Camille flicked one delicate hand in a gesture Arlo supposed was meant to encompass dead bodies and science all in one.

  “You mean forensics,” Fern said.

  Camille snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Forensics. Forensics. Forensics. Sam is good at forensics.”

  “What are you doing?” Fern asked.

  “Sam is good at forensics,” Faulkner squawked. “But the butler did it.”

  “I heard that if you say something three times and use it in a sentence that you’ll always remember it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the kind of sentence they mean,” Helen said gently.

  Camille sniffed delicately. “I’m sure it’s not. But it’s the only one I have that I can use forensics in that I know is correct. Forensics. Forensics. Forensics.”

  “Sam is good at forensics.” Faulkner flapped his wings from this place atop his cage. “The butler did it, but Sam is good at forensics.”

  “Who taught him that?” Sam asked.

  Arlo whirled around. She pointed one finger at her ex–high school sweetheart, who seemingly appeared from nowhere once again. “Bell,” she said.

  He had the audacity to chuckle.

  “We were just talking about you,” Camille chirped.

  “Really?” Sam asked.

  “Were your ears burning?” Camille continued. “Is that why you came down?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but no. I got a text from Fern.”

  Everyone turned toward the curmudgeon-turned-gardener. Fern gave a small shrug. “Seemed the easiest way to get him down here since you wanted to talk to him.”

  “You have to do something,” Arlo said where only he could hear. “They’re going to run you ragged.”

  Sam gave her that same sweet smile she knew so well. “I don’t mind.”

  “You are a flirt, Samuel Tucker,” Arlo grumbled.

  He shrugged, and his smile deepened and showed off his dimples. Even more than before. “What can I say?”

  She shook her head. “You are a stinker. I think you’re enjoying all this attention.”

  “You know what they say, if you can’t get attention from the girl you want, then take all the attention from all the girls you can get.” He tapped on the coffee bar behind him, then made his way over to the reading nook.

  “Sam is good at forensics,” Faulkner squawked.

  Arlo could do nothing but stand and stare at the place where he had been as Sam walked away. What did he mean by the girl that he wanted? That didn’t make a lot of sense. Unless… She turned toward Sam, but he was actively engaged in a conversation with Camille over how the police knew that Haley had been hit in the head with an object instead of just falling down the stairs to her death.

  Arlo half-listened as she moved over to straighten the comic books. The after-school rush had departed, and it would be another day before tiny little hands came in and disrupted Archie, Superman, and Batman and Robin. “All they can tell was that she was pushed because of bruise marks on her arms that are consistent with someone grabbing a person and perhaps manhandling them a bit. That would account for that theory.”

  “But if a statuette was missing, how do they know that’s the murder weapon?” Fern asked. “Couldn’t it just have easily been with someone, like an employee; who knows? Maybe even Anastasia. Everyone in town knows how she is.”

  Everyone in town did indeed know that Anastasia Whitney was the poster child for Generation Entitled. Thirty-five, still living at home. She flounced around as if the world owed her more than she was currently getting and she wasn’t pleased with the results. But Arlo couldn’t imagine Anastasia stealing a statuette from her grandmother. Why? To sell it? Who even knew how to sell something like that? Who even knew if the statuette was worth that much? For all Arlo knew, it could be some off-brand reproduction.

  She moved to the other side of the comic book stand before Sam could answer. “I thought you guys were talking about Mary Kennedy?” she asked.

  “We were,” Fern said.

  Helen’s mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. “We started off there anyway.”

  “You shouldn’t be bothering Sam with any of this,” Arlo reminded them.

  “Yes, yes, we know. ‘Book clubs should talk about books.’” Fern sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. She shifted her gaze to the coffee bar across from her seat. “And baristas should barista.” She pushed to her feet and headed for the coffee station.

  “We were talking about Missing Girl,” Camille defended.

  Arlo purposely didn’t look at Sam. She knew what he was hiding behind the hand that was pinching the bridge of his nose. That rattlesnake smile. Traitor.

  “We started off talking about Missing Girl,” Helen said. “Then we started talking about how it reflected the murder of Mary Kennedy.”

  “We don’t know for a fact she was murdered,” Fern called from the coffee bar. Arlo resisted the urge to close her eyes and wish they would all go away. The only problem would be that she would open her eyes, and they would all still be there. Not that she didn’t want them. She did. But sometimes she just wished…

  Sometimes she just wished they didn’t holler “murder” across the floor of the bookstore while the before-dinner crowd of parents and such were still milling around.

  “Anyway,” Helen started again. “Mary Kennedy took us to Lillyfield, and Lillyfield took us to—”

  “Haley Adams. I know.” How could she argue with that logic? She couldn’t, which was why she simply shook her head and went back to stocking books.

  She hated to even think it, but with any luck, Dylan Wright would be guilty, and Haley Adams’s murder would be solved. Then the girls would only have to worry about Mary Kennedy. And hopefully with a little more luck, Arlo could keep them contained for that one.

  Chapter 13

  Arlo opened the door to her empty house and once again contemplated getting a pet. A cat was out of the question. What if she got another Auggie? And dogs? Well, what if she got a dog, and it ended up insanely large like Mads’s dog? Dewey was a good twenty pounds over what an Airedale should weigh and was about as rambunctious as a two-year-old on a sugar high. So, she had settled for a bird and gotten Faulkner. Heavy sigh. It seemed her luck with pets was not going to hold out, so for now she would just be coming home to an empty house.

  She slipped on the kitchen light and set her purse on the table as her phone began to ring. She hadn’t even gotten her shoes off. She slipped out of her flats and fished in her purse for her
phone.

  Mads. Had he somehow known that she’d been thinking about him? She shook her head and swiped the screen to answer the call. “Hey, Mads. What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  Arlo’s stomach sank, and she eased down into the nearest kitchen chair. “What have they done now?”

  “What? Who?”

  “My book club. I’m guessing this call is about them?”

  His deep, warm chuckle came to her through the phone line. It was rich and familiar and nostalgic all in one. “I’m not calling about your book club girls.”

  Arlo smiled at the thought of him calling them girls. Kind like the Golden Girls. But a little more rambunctious and determined to solve crimes whether there was one or not.

  “Then what is this about?”

  “The movie premiere.”

  Of course.

  “The producer talked to Helen about rooms, and I blocked off some stuff at the hotel.”

  Arlo frowned. “You’re the chief of police. How did you get saddled with all this?”

  He sighed. “How do I get saddled with anything?”

  “True,” Arlo said with a small nod. “Absolutely true. So you blocked off some rooms at the hotel and…”

  “I’m wondering if we should do some sort of Sugar Springs experience, like a lock-in at the gym?”

  “Did you come up with an idea?” Arlo plucked an apple from the fruit bowl at the center of her table and took a huge bite. She wasn’t crazy about the peel, so she took the piece from her mouth and started nibbling on the white part as he explained.

  “It was Frances’s idea. I told her I didn’t think it would be what people would want when they came to a movie premiere, but you know Frances.”

  That she did. “I see.”

  “Do you?” Mads asked.

  “Keep going,” Arlo urged him.

  “I told her I would think about it, so now I’m calling you see what you think about it.”

  “Is the problem here that we don’t think we’ll have enough room to house everybody?”

  “That’s right.”