A Firm Foundation

by Anne Marie Rodgers

  Sure enough, the boy’s fingers flew. Kate smiled ruefully at his youthful speed. Technology today was a little overwhelming, she thought, when you could still remember watching The Wizard of Oz on black-and-white rabbit-eared television and using a party-line telephone in your home growing up.

  “Here,” Jeremy said. “I did a search for that, and we got all these links. Which one should I click on?”

  Kate scanned down the list. “Try that one.”

  A moment later, an encyclopedic-looking entry came up. Kate and Jeremy read it and examined the photographs of flying squirrels. “So there are Northern flying squirrels and Southern flying squirrels in Tennessee,” Kate summarized.

  “There’s some other kind too,” Jeremy said, pointing at the screen, “because ours doesn’t look like any of those.”

  “Sure doesn’t.” Kate grinned at him. “You never know, you could have a new subspecies of squirrel named after you. Pellman’s flying squirrel,” she said.

  Jeremy laughed out loud as they closed the browser window and walked back downstairs. “That would be way cool.”

  “Way cool,” Kate agreed. Her comment had been tongue-in-cheek, but it went right over Jeremy’s head. “Since we just looked at those other squirrels, why don’t we go outside and observe yours for a little while. We could write down the differences for Miss Getty.”

  “Miss who?”

  “The wildlife lady.”

  Kate and Jeremy sat beneath a tree for almost thirty minutes, but not a squirrel was in sight.

  “They’re probably all inside the air-conditioned library,” Kate said, “where we should be.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “They hardly ever come out in the morning. It’s like their rest time or something.”

  Kate stared at him in mock menace. “And it didn’t occur to you to tell me this before we came out here and sweated ourselves to death?”

  Jeremy giggled, falling onto his back on the soft grass as he did so.

  Kate watched him, smiling fondly. “I almost forgot,” she said. “The lady from the wildlife center wanted to know if you have ever seen more than one of these squirrels.”

  Jeremy sat up, nodding vigorously. “Sure I have. Two of them chase each other around sometimes, and one day when I had a whole bag of peanuts, four or five came out.”

  Kate nodded with satisfaction. “Thank you. I’m going to let her know that right now.” And she got up and walked back into the library to call Elspeth Getty.

  She used the phone at the front desk to make the call. Then she looked for Livvy.

  Her friend wasn’t among the busy workers scattered here and there around the building. Then Kate noticed that the door to the office was closed. She passed the counter and walked toward the office, hoping to catch Livvy. She was in luck, she realized, when she knocked softly on the door, then peeked inside. Livvy was sitting at her desk, unmoving.

  “Hey, lazybones,” Kate teased. “You don’t have time for lollygagging around. You’ve got troops out here that need orders.”

  Livvy slowly turned her head and looked at Kate. Her hazel eyes were dark pools of despair, and her face looked pale against the bright pink of the flowered top she wore. “Close the door,” she said in a monotone.

  Shocked and concerned, Kate did exactly that. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. She rounded the desk and laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Livvy, what is it?”

  Livvy flicked a finger at a piece of paper lying on her desk. It was letter-sized and had been folded in thirds; a matching envelope lay beneath it. “I got another note,” she said.

  Kate sucked in a breath of dismay. She bent over the desk and picked up the paper.

  The note was on plain white copy paper like the last one, printed in a standard font. It read:

  This is your last warning. Keep your nosy friend out of the library’s business, or you and your husband will be unemployed AND UNEMPLOYABLE.

  “Oh, Livvy, I’m so sorry. I know this is frightening, but—”

  “Stop.”

  “Pardon?” Kate stared at her friend.

  “I said stop,” Livvy repeated. There was both sorrow and fear in the gaze she turned on Kate. “You have to stop asking questions, Kate. Danny and I can’t afford to lose our jobs or our reputations.”

  “But, Livvy, I’m learning things. I know I’m on the trail of the real reason behind the library closing.”

  “No!” Livvy wasn’t a person to raise her voice, and Kate jumped, shocked at her friend’s tone. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. You have to stop.”

  There was a moment of silence between the two friends. Livvy’s words hung in the air, a divider between them as solid as a wall. Kate understood Livvy’s fear. But she was also certain that ignoring the situation wasn’t going to help. The only way to save the library was to find and stop the people behind it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly as she turned and left the office. She couldn’t stop, but she was going to have to be extremely cautious with the rest of her investigation.

  Although Town Hall wasn’t far, she moved her car from the library to a spot right in front of one of the gorgeous old Victorians that lined the street across from the Town Hall. This one had been lovingly restored with what looked like classic Victorian colors. It was a deep indigo blue accented by trim work in a soft crimson with paler ivory accents.

  Getting out of the Honda, she considered the best place to start her sleuthing. Obviously, she couldn’t go to Tosten Glass. If he was behind the closing, as it appeared could be the case, she couldn’t afford for him to know she still was digging for information.

  She would go to the mayor, she decided, and if he couldn’t help her, perhaps she’d try the Chronicle’s reporter, Jennifer McCarthy. The trick would be getting information out of Jennifer without letting on that it had anything to do with closing the library.

  Surely one of the two of them would have what she was after. The town-council minutes were one thing she wanted to check, but she also decided to take a look at the annual budget while she was there. She recalled her discussion with Livvy, and the final question that had remained in her mind. Could there have been a budget shortfall large enough to warrant the council having to sell off some of its assets? As important as the library was, it wasn’t a necessity.

  Crossing the street, she walked along the tree-lined path and up the concrete steps to the double-glass doors. It was hot and humid again today. She was thoroughly sick of this weather, she decided, and she’d only been home three days! But after Sunday evening’s experience, the memory of which still could make her shudder, she concluded that she’d be more than happy with a few nice cool days when there was zero percent chance of any kind of storms.

  She waved at Skip Spencer, the local deputy, as she passed his office on her way back to the mayor’s office at the end of the hall.

  The door was closed, so she knocked.

  “Yes?”

  It wasn’t exactly an invitation to enter, but she opened the door and stepped in anyway. “Hello, Lawton.”

  “Well, hello, Kate.” Lawton Briddle rose to his feet and extended a hand across his desk to Kate. After they shook, he gestured toward one of the two armchairs for guests that were set a discreet distance from his desk. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Thank you.” Kate chose a chair. “Do you have time to answer a couple of questions for me?”

  “Certainly,” he said, gesturing expansively. “Ask away.”

  Kate smiled. The mayor seemed to be in exceptionally fine humor. It was an auspicious start. “I was wondering if you have a copy of the town’s annual budget. I’d like to take a brief look at it. Also, can you tell me where the minutes of town-council meetings are kept and if it might be possible for me to see them?”

  Lawton nodded. “The budget is right here on my computer. Meantime—”

  The telephone rang. Lawton didn’t have a regular secretary. “Just let me answer this,” he said
to Kate, holding up one finger. He pushed a button and said “Hello?”

  “I’d like to speak to Tosten Glass, please,” a shrill female voice said.

  When she heard the request, Kate sat forward, realizing that Lawton had hit the speakerphone button. She knew the mayor could be...showy at times, and she suspected this display was for her benefit more than for any real need to use the speakerphone. But she was interested in hearing who was trying to contact Tosten.

  “This is the mayor’s office,” Lawton said, a trace of irritability in his tone. “You’ll have to call him at home or on his cell phone.”

  “Well, could you just give him a message?” The woman must not have been listening because she kept right on going. “This is Lillian with Skyler and Clark Properties. Could you please tell him to stop by today? I have the preliminary plans for his new building ready.”

  “Ma’am, you have the wrong number,” Lawton said. “This is not the office of the town council.”

  There was a small silence. “Oh,” said the woman. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

  Lawton looked at Kate. He held out both hands in exasperation, shrugging his shoulders while she struggled not to laugh. He shook his head as he hit the Off button. “You cannot imagine how often that happens,” he told her. “I get tired of taking personal messages for Tosten.”

  “What does Skyler and Clark Properties do?” Kate asked. She’d seen the name around town, but she’d never paid much attention to it before.

  Lawton frowned. “They build and manage apartment buildings. I believe they have about five properties under their belt now.”

  “Apartment buildings,” Kate repeated. What was Tosten Glass doing talking to someone about apartment buildings? It probably had nothing to do with the library situation, she reminded herself. Still, she couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling, and she filed the information away to review later.

  “As we were discussing before we were interrupted,” Lawton said, “you were asking about the town-council’s meeting minutes. Most of them are public record, so I don’t see why you couldn’t take a look.”

  He swiveled his desk chair around to face a large filing cabinet and bookshelf behind him. Reaching up, he tugged a hefty dark blue notebook off the shelf and turned back to Kate. He laid the heavy volume on the desk with a thunk. “These only go back to 1985,” he said. “There’s another notebook from before that, but you won’t need it if you just want this year.”

  He pulled his keyboard toward him and hit a few keys. “I’ll print you out a copy of the budget, and you can take that with you.”

  He rose and came around the desk, picking up the notebook and carrying it to a coffee table on a small rug in front of a love seat along one wall. “You can sit here and read the minutes.”

  “Thanks.” Kate sat and opened the notebook.

  Lawton said, “These are just the regular meeting minutes.”

  Kate nodded. She’d been expecting that. “So the minutes from the closed-door sessions aren’t public?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Those are confidential.”

  “Oh.” Kate hadn’t expected to get a lot of information, but she’d been hoping there might be something available from those private meetings. If something big concerning the library had happened at a regular session of the council, she was certain the entire town would have known about it. After all, Jennifer McCarthy got the agenda for every public meeting, and she attended if there appeared to be any controversial issue brewing. Still, there might be some clue that had been overlooked, so she intended to read the previous months’ minutes.

  Kate decided to start with the first meeting in January. Surely something of the magnitude of the library closing and moving would have taken some time to develop. But she found nothing in January’s minutes.

  February...March...clear up through May, there was no indication of any sort of issue regarding the library other than approving a request from the Friends of the Library to put up a tent in the library’s yard during the downtown summer flea market held at the end of August. Kate supposed that wouldn’t be happening now, but she found it interesting that in June everyone appeared to assume that the library would be there in August. The event was still two weeks away.

  Reading on, she still didn’t see anything odd in June. In fact, that month, the council had set a date for the annual Christmas Open House. How could no one have heard of the closing yet?

  On the heels of those realizations, Kate hit pay dirt. Of a very modest sort, but pay dirt nonetheless, she thought.

  The previous Thursday, while Kate was away, a special meeting of the town council had been called. The public minutes were very short and to the point. The meeting had been called because a lawyer from McMinnville over in neighboring Warren County had asked to address the council immediately. According to the single page of information, the lawyer presented “previously unknown information” to the council, after which they went into private session. Previously unknown information? Kate tapped the page with a finger. If she were a betting woman, she’d bet that information had something to do with the closing of the library. It seemed too coincidental to be unrelated.

  The lawyer’s name wasn’t mentioned until the end of the document. Then the name “Ellis Hayer, Esquire” appeared one single time. It looked as if the council secretary had intended to keep Hayer’s identity anonymous but had slipped up and recorded it once. Kate thought about Eva Mountjoy, who had signed these minutes as well as the others Kate had read. Eva was no fool. Could she possibly have left the name accessible on purpose? Regardless of how it got there, Kate was relieved to have a new lead to follow.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate quickly pulled a pen and a small notebook from her handbag and wrote “Ellis Hayer” on the paper. Reading on, she saw the meeting notes for the previous day’s special session approving Livvy’s funding request. Eva had faithfully documented the brief discussion about the library closing before Tosten called a closed-door session. What Kate wouldn’t give to read those private meeting minutes!

  Oh well. Kate was a firm believer in the old adage, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” And she certainly had the will—namely her determination to prevent the library from closing—to find out all the facts she needed to keep it open.

  Kate flipped the meeting-minutes notebook closed and rose from her chair. Shouldering her handbag, she walked to the desk and laid the notebook atop it.

  “Thank you,” she said to Lawton. “I need a favor. Could you not mention to anyone that I was here this morning?”

  He looked at her quizzically. “Because?”

  “I’d rather not say,” Kate told him. “I’m doing a little research for a friend, but it’s a secret, and I’d really love to keep it a surprise.” Which technically was true.

  Lawton eyed her for another minute, but finally, he said, “All right.”

  “Thank you!” she said. “One more thing. Have you heard anything about new construction or development planned for the downtown area over the past few months?”

  Lawton frowned. “No, I would know . . . Oh, wait. A couple of months ago, someone told me they heard there were going to be some new apartments coming in downtown. But nothing formal has been done, and I haven’t heard about it from any of the council members. Also, there would have to be building permits, and I’d be aware of those. I dismissed it as a rumor.” He extended a set of stapled pages to Kate. “Here’s that copy of the budget.”

  “Thanks.” As she accepted it, Kate’s smile turned to a frown. “I’ve read the council minutes—the public ones, at least—back to the beginning of the year. I don’t remember anything like that being discussed or even brought up and tabled. I’m sure I’d remember it. Where on earth would they put them, anyway? There aren’t any suitable vacant lots that I can think of.”

  Then an ugly thought struck her as she remembered the phone call he’d taken earlier. “You don’t suppose they’re pl
anning to renovate the library for apartments, do you?”

  Lawton looked disturbed. “I guess I’d better find out. I assumed that real estate call was personal business, but maybe it wasn’t.”

  “Was Tosten Glass in charge while you were gone?”

  “Yes,” he said, and he didn’t sound happy about it. “But I certainly never thought the council would make a major decision like closing the library without my input.”

  “Why might they have done that?”

  “I can’t imagine,” the mayor said. He was silent for a moment. Then he mumbled, “I don’t know what happened to Tosten.”

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked.

  He shrugged. “We were classmates. He lived down the street from me when we were growing up. We used to be close friends.” He gestured to the far wall, which was covered with framed photographs, plaques, certificates, and all manner of memorabilia celebrating Mayor Lawton Briddle. “See the pictures on the far left in the double frame?”

  Kate walked over to examine the photos. Both were stills from the Copper Mill Chronicle of yesteryear. The top one showed three young boys, perhaps Jeremy’s age, holding large flat pans, standing in a stream in pants wet to the knees. The caption below read, “Tosten Glass, Gerald Foxfield and Lawton Briddle panned for gold during a Boy Scout camping trip.”

  Kate grinned. “Since you’re not living in a mansion, I suspect no gold was found.”

  Lawton chuckled and shook his head. “No, but Tosten was convinced we were close. He’d have stayed out there for weeks if his mother had allowed it.”

  The bottom photograph showed two older teens wearing baseball uniforms. One leaned on a bat, the other wore a mitt and held a ball loosely. The caption read, “Lawton Briddle and Tosten Glass, both seniors, are tied for the state record RBI average.”

  “He beat me,” Lawton recalled, walking over to join her. “By two-tenths of a point.”

  “I bet that was tough,” Kate said sympathetically. She looked more closely at the two photographs, trying to discern which one was Lawton and which one was Tosten, but no luck. The pictures were grainy black and whites, and both men had...prospered since then.