by Jackie Lynn
SEVEN
Rose left the sheriff’s office and headed straight to the library. She planned to go to the history section to search for a book that could help her decipher the symbols on the dead man’s bracelet. She thought Ms. Lou Ellen had given her good advice about identifying them, but instead of drawing the symbols on a piece of paper and taking that to the library, she’d just decided to take the piece of jewelry along with her. She figured that she would be able to find a private place where no one would see her and where she could do the research without being discovered.
Having visited the library a few times during her stay in West Memphis, she knew that on a Tuesday afternoon the place would be mostly unoccupied, and she was right. The library was empty of people except for an older woman who appeared to be studying recipes from magazines, two teenaged boys at the computers, a young woman with a small child in the children’s section, and two librarians. One of them was leaving when Rose walked in.
The younger woman, the librarian Rose had seen in the building before, held open the door, offering a polite greeting to Rose and waving good-bye to the woman standing behind the desk. This one, a round woman of middle age, was only vaguely familiar to Rose. She was busy on the phone when Rose stepped to the desk to ask her a question.
She dropped the receiver by her chin and pointed Rose to the reference section when she asked the location of books on Native American tribes.
The librarian was patiently giving information about an upcoming seminar that the library was offering, some sort of job fair or career counseling. Rose heard part of the conversation but quit paying attention when she found her way to the sought-after stacks.
Rose grabbed a couple of books from a shelf and then walked to a long table at the rear of the library. It was positioned against a wall, with chairs arranged around it. There were shelves of books on one side, and from where she sat, her back against the far wall, she was facing only a narrow hallway that led to a rear entrance. She glanced around, and, seeing no one around, decided this was a good place where she could do her work without being noticed.
She had taken a few extra pieces of paper from the pad she had been given when she made her statement for Sheriff Montgomery. And when she took these out of her purse, along with a pen, she wondered if she should have asked the deputy before she took them.
Too late, she thought to herself, and placed them in front of her. She pushed her purse under the table and then, just to be safe, reached inside her coat pocket and touched the bracelet. She chose to keep the piece of jewelry out of sight. She removed her jacket, however, since it was warm in the library, and hung it on the back of her chair.
Once she’d located the reference section, she found that there were not many books that she considered would be helpful. She hadn’t been specific with the librarian when she’d asked for assistance, because the woman had been preoccupied with the person on the phone and because she didn’t want to give any clues about why she was there. She had only requested information about southeastern Indian tribes, hoping she could find what she was looking for once she was directed to the proper section.
She’d found an encyclopedia of North American Indian tribes and a large book about Indian history published by Reader’s Digest. She opened up the encyclopedia first and searched for anything resembling what she had seen on the jewelry. She looked up the tribes from New Mexico as well as tribes around the Mississippi River.
She began to read. She took in the information before her, soon realizing that she had never known that there were so many different tribes of Indians in America, nor had she ever really heard the harsh stories of massacre and eradication that happened to so many once the Europeans arrived.
Like most everyone else, Rose held a Hollywood version of native people. First, there was the savage image of Indians chasing the pioneers, stealing the women, and then there was the mythical one, the image of a people deeply connected to the earth, the image that the New Agers seemed particularly interested in. Even though she had read sympathetic accounts, those that spoke of the stories of the smallpox blankets and the introduction of alcohol, Rose had never read the stories of the complete destruction of tribes, the vast genocide that had occurred in this country.
After reading a few chapters, she closed the first book and opened the next one. There was only more of the same: epidemics, enslavement, death, and forced removal. She stopped reading and reached inside her pocket and pulled out the bracelet. She held it in her hands, thinking about the old man, about his history, his family, about dying alone in a strange place, about his violent end and how it now seemed to resemble the violent ends of so many of his ancestors.
She searched the book again, then turned to the index and searched for the word symbols. She flipped to the pages listed and found an entire section discussing symbols of different tribes. These symbols, she discovered, had been carved on cave and canyon walls, near the villages and pueblos, and along migration routes. They had been recorded and deciphered by scores of anthropologists and other persons interested in petroglyphs. She found some of the ones Ms. Lou Ellen had mentioned, as well as a couple that she recognized from the bracelet.
One of the symbols, the two circles, one inside the other, she learned, was a sign for the sun. The small square, completely dark inside, was considered to be a sign of death. The parallel lines had been correctly identified by Ms. Lou Ellen. According to the book Rose read, this was a sign for a trail or a map. She pulled the bracelet from her pocket and studied it again. Three other symbols remained that she hadn’t found.
There was one with a parallel set of dotted lines running vertically, connected with small horizontal lines. There was a circle with half of it darkened, the other half bearing a few dots. Finally, there was one with several characters carved, with lines above the tops of them. Rose inspected the bracelet and then placed it back in her pocket. She wrote down the symbols that she had identified.
“We don’t have a copier for the public. Well, we had one, but it’s broken.”
Rose glanced up from her research when she heard the librarian talking. It was the same woman who had guided her to the reference section. She recognized her voice from the telephone conversation.
“You can try the post office,” the woman added. “They’ve got one that uses credit cards.”
“And where is your post office?” a man asked, and the voice caught Rose’s attention. It was deep, with a slowed articulation of words. It wasn’t exactly familiar, but it was interesting. She listened.
“It’s on the next corner,” the librarian told him. Then there was a pause. Rose figured the librarian was pointing the post office out to the stranger, who was probably looking down the street in the direction of the building with a public copier.
“Where are you from?” the woman asked, appearing to make an effort to sound cheerful and hospitable instead of nosy, which was how Rose thought the line of questioning was more clearly interpreted.
“Louisiana,” the man replied hesitantly. “Natchez,” he added softly. “Natchez, Louisiana.”
“Oh, Natchez,” the woman responded, as if he had just named her hometown and he was some long-lost cousin. “My neighbor is from Natchez.”
Rose rolled her eyes. She could tell from the silence that the stranger probably wished he hadn’t stopped in the library for assistance.
“Isn’t that south from here, straight down the river?” she asked even more cheerfully than before.
There was a pause. Rose listened.
“You’re thinking of Natchez, Mississippi,” he replied, his tone flat and bored.
“There’s two Natchezes?” the librarian asked, drawing out the city’s name into more than a few syllables.
“Yes, ma’am,” the man replied.
“Well, I need to find out which Natchez she’s from. Maybe she hails from Louisiana, too.”
There was another moment of silence.
“Okay, thank you,” the man sai
d.
“Shug,” the woman said sweetly and in more of a hushed tone, though everyone in the library could certainly hear her, “just give me what you need copied and I’ll do it in the office for you.”
Rose thought that the librarian was probably trying to make up for her geographical blunder. By this time, she had quit researching and was listening intently.
“No,” the man replied curtly, then added, “I will take care of it.”
“Really, the chief librarian is gone today. He’s in Little Rock, trying to get us more money.” The librarian’s voice got softer but remained audible. “We’ve overspent the budget,” she said. “It’s the computers.”
“I’ll just go to the post office.”
Rose leaned forward to hear more clearly.
“Honey, I don’t mind. Just give me your papers and I’ll do it for you.” She sounded insistent.
“No” came the stern reply. And with that, Rose heard a shuffle and then the library door opened and closed.
She got up from her seat at the back table and walked around the corner to see the man, whose voice she had found so interesting, departing.
“Well, I was only trying to be helpful,” the librarian said in a defensive tone once she noticed that Rose had stepped near her.
Rose offered no reply. She peered out the door, watching the stranger as he headed down the sidewalk.
“Some people just have no manners,” the librarian added, stacking books on the cart beside her. Her lips were pulled in a straight, tight line and her face was flushed. “I was just trying to be helpful,” she said again. “But I guess it’s true: Some people you just can’t help.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to have you looking at his papers,” Rose replied, thinking it was a simple observation. She had not considered that the woman might take it as an insult.
The librarian loaded a few more books on the cart.
Rose turned toward the sidewalk and noticed the ponytail hanging down the man’s back, the tall, dark manner of his figure. She recognized immediately that he was the same stranger she had seen in the sheriff’s office.
He halted his pace, stopped. Rose hurried behind the shelves before she could see him pivot around and peer in her direction.
“Hon,” the chatty librarian said to Rose, noticing her quick move behind the shelves next to the desk. “Is there something else I can help you with?”
Her tone was not so cheerful. She was facing Rose and had not seen the man turn and look back.
“Uh, I’m fine,” Rose said as she peeked around the corner to make sure that the stranger was now gone. She blew out a breath.
“Well, you could tell me if there are any other history books you might have.” She slid her hands down the front of her pants, then folded them across her chest, then dropped them by her sides. It was nervous behavior, and the librarian paid attention to it.
She studied Rose for a minute, putting down the books she held in her hands. “Do you have a library card?” she asked suspiciously.
“A what?” Rose asked.
“A library card,” she said again. “You’ll need a library card if you want to check anything out.” The librarian narrowed her eyes at Rose.
“I’m not really from here,” Rose said, feeling like she was suddenly being reprimanded. Even though she had been in the library at West Memphis before, she had not taken the time to register or to get a card. Any book she had wanted to read, Thomas or Ms. Lou Ellen had checked out for her, using their library cards.
“I don’t plan to check anything out, but I can look at your books here, can’t I?” she asked. “I mean, without a library card?”
The librarian hesitated. Clearly, she could not stop a visitor from studying in the county building.
“There’s a section behind the magazines about local history. Maybe there will be something for you to browse through.” She paused and then added sharply, “While you visit.”
Rose gave her a broad fake smile and walked over to the section the librarian had mentioned. She found lots of books about the river and about the Civil War, about agriculture and state politics. She flipped through some of them, finding nothing of interest.
After searching the entire area that had been recommended to her, she soon learned that there were no books about Native Americans. She glanced across all the shelves in the history area and then returned to the table where she had been sitting and working. She did not notice right away that anything was different.
She sat in the chair and glanced down, aware that the pages in the book she had been reading appeared to be turned to a different section than the one she had been studying. She thought she remembered what she had been reading when she had walked away, but she figured at first that maybe a breeze coming from the vents around her had blown across the book and turned the pages.
Then she realized that her ink pen was no longer inside the large reference guide but was now positioned next to her paper, which also seemed to have been disturbed. What had previously been five or six sheets stacked on top of one another were now scattered on top of the desk. Again, Rose considered air from a vent, but she searched around and didn’t see any vents near where she was seated and she felt no draft around her.
Then she leaned against the chair and, without really thinking, stuck her hand in the pocket of her coat, which she had left hanging there. And that was when she knew someone had been there. The bracelet was gone.
She reached into the other pocket. It had only her keys in it. She jumped up and glanced around her seat, across the table, under the books and her paper. Her purse was still there, her wallet still inside. Nevertheless, it was obvious to her what had happened. Somebody had reached inside her jacket and stolen the bracelet.
She ran to the front desk. The librarian was not there. Rose assumed she was in the rear office somewhere, but she couldn’t see anyone behind the glass partition. She spun around to see who was still present in the library. She saw the young woman with the child, the two teenaged boys at the computers. The older woman was gone from the magazine section, but Rose spotted her returning from the rest room. Like the others in the library, the woman acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Rose faced back toward the desk and the office. “Excuse me,” she said loudly.
The two teenagers looked up from the computers. The women heard her, as well, but Rose didn’t care if she was making too much noise.
“Hello,” she said, showing a fair amount of concern in her voice. “Are you still here?” she asked, leaning against the counter, trying to gain the attention of the librarian.
There was no reply. The others in the library only stared at her. Rose hurried around the desk and walked into the office. She saw a doorway leading behind the office. She headed toward it. She turned the corner and barreled right into the librarian.
“Good heavens!” the woman screamed. She backed away from Rose, trying to gain her composure. Then she quickly yelled, “You can’t be in here!” She was obviously rattled by the surprising presence.
Rose peered behind the woman and saw a rear entrance and a staff bathroom. Both doors were standing open.
“Did you see anybody else in here?” she asked. She was certainly not concerned about trespassing in the staff quarters.
“What?” the woman asked. Now, no longer startled, she stepped closer to Rose. “I’ve been in the office.” She stopped speaking, assessing the situation, “Wait, I told you that you can’t be back here. This is for employees only.” And she placed her fists on her hip. “Why are you here?” she asked Rose.
“Somebody stole—” She stopped and thought better of what she was saying. “I’ve lost something and I needed to know if you’ve seen anybody else come in the library.” She spoke in an agitated tone.
The librarian took in a breath and then blew it out slowly. She glanced above Rose’s head and saw the older woman from the magazine section standing at the front desk. She raised her chin
in her direction and then moved around Rose.
“You need to return to the desk. I will not answer your questions in this hallway.” And she jerked her head up and down and headed toward the side door to the office.
She held open the door while Rose walked through. Then she closed the door behind them. Rose hurried through the other door and around the desk. She glanced over and saw the woman who had been reading the magazines waiting for assistance. It was clear to Rose that the librarian was not going to be helpful to her. In fact, Rose thought that the librarian could possibly even make things worse, so she returned to the table where she had been working.
She checked everything again. She retraced all of her steps, thinking that maybe she had put the bracelet in her pants pocket and that it had dropped out when she went to see the stranger the librarian had been talking to.
She walked through the stacks, searching to see if there was anyone new in the library who might have entered when she wasn’t watching. She stood behind the computers and watched the two boys who were playing games and who seemed not at all interested in the woman staring at them.
She went around to the children’s section, deciding finally that there was nothing odd about the woman reading to her child. And the older woman, who had gathered her things and was standing at the front desk talking to the librarian, seemed completely harmless.
Rose noticed that both of the women had turned and were watching her as she rambled about, trying to figure out what had happened to the bracelet. They turned around and began to whisper to each other, but Rose didn’t care if they were talking about her. All she could think about was the piece of jewelry that she had taken and that had now been taken from her.
She headed to her place at the table and sat down. She leaned forward in the chair, searching again under the table and around where she had been sitting. She lifted the books from the desk, shuffled the papers. There was still nothing. She glanced around the library again, this time studying the rear entry, which was straight down the aisle from where she was sitting. The leaves of a plant next to the door were swaying from side to side, as if the door had only recently been opened and closed.
