by Jessica Beck
Chapter 9
“There it is,” Grace said as she pointed to Karen Harris’s tiny cottage. It looked to be big enough for one person, but I doubted that two could live in it very comfortably. Still, with the small lot it sat on, I doubted that a full-sized abode would even fit on it. It had its own charm, though, with a small porch protected by white gingerbread railing facing onto a shingled exterior. There was even a circular window above the porch, a bit of whimsy that looked perfect in its setting. I couldn’t think of what the cottage reminded me of, and then I realized that it was very much a scaled-up dollhouse.
“It’s a neat house, isn’t it?” I asked as we parked in front of her driveway, cutting her off from a quick departure.
“You’re kidding, right?” Grace asked me. “I’d be constantly hitting my shins and elbows if I tried to live in such a tiny space. It looks more like a kid’s playhouse than a place for a full-grown adult.”
“I don’t know,” I said as we got out and approached. “I’m not at all sure that I’d mind this.”
“Try to fit Jake in one of those. I dare you,” she said with a grin.
“No thanks.” The front door was closed, so I knocked a few times. Surely if she were inside, she’d be able to hear me from no matter where she might be.
Karen opened the door almost immediately. “Yes? What is it?”
“Hi, Karen. How are you?” I asked cordially, despite the rather abrupt greeting she’d just given us. Her normally sweet manner wasn’t present this afternoon. The older woman’s white hair was in a bit of a state, with strands floating everywhere around her face, and she was a bit flushed as well. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. Why should it be?”
“We just went by the library, and they were rather disturbed by the way you just walked away from everything,” Grace said.
“I’m a volunteer. I’m allowed to come and go as I please,” she said a little abruptly.
We didn’t need to antagonize this woman, especially since we were about to ask her for a favor. “Of course you can. I’m sure the entire community appreciates all that you’ve done on behalf of the library.”
That seemed to mollify her a little. “I don’t do it for exaltation,” she said. “I love that place.”
“So, if it’s not too personal a question, why are you leaving it so abruptly?” I asked her gently.
She frowned for a moment before she answered. “Trust me, this isn’t as abrupt as it may seem from the outside looking in. I’ve been thinking about doing this for ages. All I can say is that it was just time. I’ve decided that I’ve had my fill of it, all of it, so I’m leaving town, and I have no plans to ever come back.”
I glanced past her and saw that the tiny living area inside was overflowing with boxes, many of them already packed and taped shut. “Are you sure that it’s not too drastic a change, leaving everything that you know behind all at once?”
“What if it is?” she asked. “After all, in the end, it’s my life, isn’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to get back to my packing. There’s a whole other world out there, and I mean to start exploring it today.”
“Where exactly are you going?” Grace asked her.
“That I haven’t decided yet,” Karen admitted.
“Why the rush, then? Surely you have two minutes for us.”
Karen seemed to think about brushing us off entirely, but it wasn’t in her nature, and she finally decided to let us inside the homey space. “That’s about all that I have, and if you stay, you have to promise to keep out of my way while I pack.”
That was going to be hard to guarantee given the size of her space, but we’d do our best. “You’ve got a deal.”
“What is this really all about, you two?” Karen asked as she walked in and started storing items from her small kitchen in one of the waiting boxes. “I appreciate you both expressing your concern for my wellbeing, but it’s clear that there’s another motivating factor behind your visit, and I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what it is.”
“Benjamin Port,” I said.
She dropped a glass when I said the dead man’s name, and it promptly shattered as it hit the hardwood floor.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said. “Where’s your broom? I’ll sweep it up.”
“I’ll do it,” she said, basically ordering me to stay right where I was.
“Did you know Benjamin very well?” I asked her.
“Me? No. Why? What did you hear? Why on earth would you bring his name up after all these years?”
The former librarian was clearly on the defensive now. I could either back off or push her harder. I didn’t have the opportunity to decide, though. Grace made her decision faster than I could.
“We need answers from you, not questions, Karen. Surely you’ve heard about the note they found in the time capsule today. Why should you mind answering a few of our inquiries?”
Karen finished sweeping up the glass shards and depositing them in a waste can. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about the man other than what I heard around town in idle speculation.”
“Suzanne, you were right. She’s not going to talk to us. Go ahead and call Jake,” Grace told me, as though we’d already planned on that as being our backup plan.
“The sheriff? Why would you call him?” Karen asked, clearly troubled by the turn of events. It felt as though we were forcing her into answering our questions, something I hated, but how else could we get her to talk to us? She clearly wasn’t going to do it on her own. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to bully this sweet old lady, no matter what the consequences.
“Don’t worry. We won’t call him, Karen,” I said, suddenly feeling remorseful about using Jake’s position as leverage for our investigation. “Just tell us about Benjamin.”
“Well, for starters, I can say without hesitation that he wasn’t a very nice man,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
“Really.”
“Take my word for it. I know from firsthand experience.”
“Did you two ever happen to date?” Grace asked her. The ages didn’t quite match up, but so what if Karen was older than Benjamin might have been at the time he was murdered? If it was okay for men to be older in a relationship, why shouldn’t women have the same advantage?
“No, not that he didn’t try. I knew for a fact that he was already going out with at least three women in town when he approached me. I rebuffed him, and he didn’t like it, not one little bit. The others somehow found out what had happened and twisted the situation to put the blame on me; I had to work hard to convince them that it hadn’t been my idea. I wasn’t sure any of them ever believed me, though.”
That might have given us a motive if Karen had been murdered, but someone had killed her would-be suitor instead. “You said that he was dating three women, but we only know of two. Care to enlighten us as to the identity of the third lady in question?”
“I’d really rather not say.” The flat tone of her voice told me that I might be able to come back to that line of questioning with her later, but for now, it was a dead topic of conversation.
“Okay then, do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?” I asked her.
“You know, I had a hunch all along that it was murder. I never bought the idea that he’d been poisoned by a canned chicken by accident,” she said. “From what I knew of the man, he ate all his meals out; breakfasts, lunches, and dinners included.”
We hadn’t heard that, but it made sense that he’d made a romantic contact with Hilda at the Boxcar, especially if he’d eaten there every day. I repeated my question. “Who do you know who might have wanted to see him dead?”
“Well, don’t look at me,” she said a little shrilly. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Nobody said that you did,” Grace replied calmly. I was glad to see that she realized that we couldn’t push her any more, either.
“Good, because I didn’t. You should really talk to the judge,” Karen said as she continued to stuff things into boxes.
“Judge Hurley?” Grace asked her.
“Who else?”
“Why did he have a problem with Benjamin?”
“Didn’t you know? I thought it was common knowledge around town. The judge hates to be made to look like a fool, but that’s exactly what Ben did to him not long before he died.”
“How exactly did he manage that?” I asked. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“He sold Ben some books at a yard sale back before the judge’s wife died, and it turned out that they were worth a small fortune. That might have been all right in and of itself if Ben hadn’t told everyone in town about what he’d done. The judge was furious, demanding the money Ben had made from the deal, but of course he refused, and things nearly came to blows between them.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“Less than a month before Ben died,” she said.
“Getting cheated out of a little money is hardly motive enough for murder,” Grace said.
“Don’t you see?” Karen asked. “The money never mattered. It was about the judge’s pride. He’d been held up for public ridicule, and he hated it.”
“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Grace said, and then she looked long and hard at the retired librarian before she asked her next question. “Can we drop the pretense for a second that you’re off to see the world? What’s really got you so spooked, Karen? This isn’t like you, running away like this. Talk to us.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m so sorry.”
“You’ll feel better if you share your burden with us,” I said in my most reassuring voice.
“I’m tempted, I truly am, but I can’t do that to you.”
That was an odd explanation for her behavior. “What exactly would you be doing to us?”
For a moment, Karen looked like a hunted animal. “I saw a couple things I shouldn’t have all those years ago, and I discounted them as pure coincidence, but when your husband found that confession today, I realized that I knew more than I thought I did. I’ve been stewing about it all these years, and now my worst nightmare has come true. I live here alone, and I’m vulnerable. The truth of the matter is that I don’t feel secure in this town anymore.”
“The only way you’ll ever truly be safe is if you share what you know with someone else,” I said.
Karen was about to speak when there was a sudden crash from above us, and the glass from the round window overhead shattered and rained down on us. We all instantly bent over and covered our heads as best we could. Something landed heavily beside me just after the glass broke.
It was a broken brick, a paver that looked old and weathered with time and abuse.
“Are you two all right?” I asked them as I checked myself for any damage from the falling glass.
“I’m fine,” Grace said, a little out of breath. “A huge shard of glass just missed hitting me, but I got lucky.”
“I’m okay, too,” Karen echoed, though clearly she wasn’t, at least not emotionally.
I stood up and headed for the front door, with Grace close on my heels.
She couldn’t get away from Karen, though. The librarian grabbed her leg and wouldn’t let her go. “Don’t leave me!”
“Go on,” Grace ordered. “I’ll be there in a second.”
I nodded as I raced outside to see if I could catch a glimpse of whoever had hurled that brick through the glass.
But I was too late.
Whoever had done it was already gone.
Chapter 10
Grace joined me a second later. “Did you see anyone outside?” she asked me.
“No. Whoever did it is long gone.”
“Suzanne, this wasn’t just some random coincidence,” Grace said as she looked back at the house. Remnants of glass still stayed within the circular frame, and it was clear that the builder had cut a few corners and had used regular glass instead of the safety type required. The results could have been calamitous, and only dumb luck had saved the three of us from getting some nasty cuts at the very least.
“It’s hard to imagine that it could be just chance,” I agreed. “How did you manage to work yourself free from Karen’s grasp?”
“I thought you might be in trouble, so I found a way.”
We walked back inside and found Karen Harris stuffing a few things into her overnight bag, abandoning her more detailed packing from before. The moment she saw us, she said, “That’s it. I’m leaving this instant, and if the killer wants anything that I’ve left behind, he’s welcome to it all.”
“Do you have some reason to believe that a man killed Benjamin Port?” Grace asked.
“No, but I can’t bring myself to use a generic ‘they’ when ‘he’ is the proper way to speak.” She might be in fear for her life, but old habits died hard, and being precise in her language was clearly one of them. “I told you both, didn’t I? You need to stay out of this.”
“No one wants to hurt us,” Grace said reasonably.
“That might have been true before, but I’m afraid that it’s not the case anymore,” Karen said worriedly as she zipped her bag shut.
As we followed her outside toward her car, she stopped long enough to lock the front door behind her. “What are you talking about, Karen?” I asked her.
“Ben’s killer obviously just warned me to keep my mouth shut, but he must have seen your Jeep blocking me in my own driveway while he was here. It’s a distinctive vehicle, Suzanne. The logical assumption would be that I told you everything. At least, that’s the worst-case scenario the killer can probably imagine. That means that he must assume that you know what I know, so it makes you a target as well.”
I didn’t like the sound of that one little bit, but it wasn’t as though it hadn’t happened before. I’d been in the sights of murderers in the past, and yet I’d managed to survive each attempt on my life. I realized, though, that it would only take one successful effort to end that streak. I had a sudden thought. “That means that you have to tell me now.”
As she started for her car, a Mini Cooper with a sticker that said I LOVE BOOKS, she said, “I don’t follow.”
“Karen, my life’s already in danger. Shouldn’t I at least have the benefit of knowing what you know so I have a chance to fight back?”
The retired librarian looked as though she wanted to cry, but finally, she nodded in agreement. “I can’t argue with your logic. Okay, here goes. It might mean nothing, but two things happened near the time of Benjamin Port’s demise. The first is that I saw Hillary Mast heading toward Ben’s place on foot the day he died.”
“How is that significant?” I asked.
“I might be wrong, but I could swear that I saw a jar of canned chicken in her hands. What was worse was that she saw me, too.”
“Did you tell anyone about what you saw?” Grace asked her.
“What business was it of mine? The police called it an accident at the time, remember?” Karen asked. “I asked Hillary about it the next day when she came into the library, and she said that she’d gotten it at the farmer’s market. She seemed truly bereft about what had happened, so I tried my best to forget all about it.”
“I imagine the police followed up on that,” I said.
“You said there were two things you saw,” I reminded her. “What was the second one?”
“It was a fight I wasn’t supposed to have witnessed,” she said.
“Between?”
“Benjamin and Hilda Fremont. She was giving him an ultimatum.”
“What did she say?”
“Either he had to drop everyone else in his life and focus on her, or he’d regret it,” she said breathlessly. “It sounded like a threat to me at the time.”
“How did you happen to overhear them?” I asked, curious about it.
“It was pure accident, really. My dog, Toby, got loose, and I was s
earching for him. I checked near the Boxcar because he loves to play in the park, and I overheard them talking in back of the diner.”
“Did they see you?”
She frowned before she spoke again. “I was trying to make a quiet exit before they could, but Toby saw me and started barking as he ran to me. There was nothing I could do about it.”
That was interesting information as well. There was just one more fact we needed from Karen before we could let her go. “By the way, who was the third woman?” I asked her.
“Well, I imagined that it had to be Hillary Mast. After all, she was taking him food, and isn’t that one of the ways that women court men?”
“Some women probably do,” I said. I remembered an older cousin when I’d been growing up who’d loved to proclaim that if you could bake a cake, you could get a husband, and she’d proved it later by marrying a man well above her who had a sweet tooth that drove him into matrimony. “Is there anything else?”
“I’ve told you everything that I know,” Karen said. “Suzanne, I really need you to move your Jeep right now. I’m getting out of here.”
“Aren’t you going to at least hang around and have your window fixed?” I asked.
“Right now, all I’m determined to do is to keep breathing. Everything else can wait until I know for a fact that I’m truly safe.”
I had no choice but to accede to her request, but before I moved my vehicle, I handed her one of my cards after scrawling my cellphone number on the back of it. “If you think of anything else, no matter how trivial it might seem to you, call me, okay?”
“Of course. Now I really must go,” she said as she continued to scan up and down her block.
I moved the Jeep, and Karen Harris drove speedily out of town with nothing more than an overnight bag and a determination to escape a killer’s attention.
When I considered it later, I realized that it was probably the most rational thing that I’d ever seen, and I envied her decisiveness. Could I abandon everything in the face of that kind of danger? I knew from experience that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The old “fight or flight” scenario always played out for me with opting for direct confrontation instead of fleeing.
