Death in the Stacks

by Jenn McKinlay

  Dr. Boyle winced, and Lindsey felt badly that she couldn’t have found a better way to phrase it, but really, what could she say?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He nodded as if to let her know he understood the difficulty of speaking about Olive’s passing. He glanced at his wife and said, “I think I need to discuss this with them.”

  With obvious reluctance, Molly said, “Yes, of course. My personal feelings aside, no one deserves that end. Do come in and make yourselves comfortable.”

  She gestured for Lindsey and Robbie to follow her.

  Unlike Olive’s house, this was a home. Pictures of two children, a boy and a girl, were scattered everywhere, following their growth from birth to teenagers. Photos of the family of four graced the walls and furniture, and books and magazines were stacked on every surface, along with the odds and ends of life, such as shoes on the floor, a lip gloss on an end table, a knit hat half stuffed behind a couch cushion. The place smelled faintly of laundry detergent and cinnamon rolls. It was the sort of house that welcomed because it was well lived in. Lindsey liked it—she liked it a lot.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” Molly asked.

  “Yes, please,” Lindsey said.

  “That would be lovely, Molly,” Robbie added.

  Molly blushed a faint pink and giggled.

  “We’ll be in my study,” Dr. Boyle said.

  He led them down a short hallway into a small room. It had a large window that overlooked the side yard and a thick patch of woods that separated it from the house next door. A desk was in front of the windows, while a small couch and two armchairs filled the rest of the space. The walls were floor-to-ceiling bookcases crammed with medical texts. The librarian in Lindsey was impressed.

  “Dr. Boyle,” she began, but he interrupted.

  “Please call me Kyle, since you’re on a first-name basis with my wife,” he said. He smiled at them and gestured for them to sit. Lindsey and Robbie took the couch while he sat in one of the armchairs.

  “All right, and I’m Lindsey and you know—”

  “Robbie,” Kyle said. “Yes, I got that. My wife is quite taken with you.”

  “Sorry about that,” Robbie said.

  “Not at all,” Kyle said. “Molly’s a good woman. She deserves to have something to brag about at her card games. Thank you for humoring her.”

  “She’s really very nice,” Lindsey said. “Although I did get the feeling that she wasn’t overly fond of Olive.”

  “No,” Kyle agreed. “There was no love between them. Being the second wife was hard on Molly.”

  Both Lindsey and Robbie were quiet, waiting for him to continue. Kyle glanced out the window as if lost in thought and then back at them.

  “Sorry, I’m still having a hard time processing the whole thing. Olive and I divorced twenty years ago, and yet she still managed to keep me dangling on a string. I do think she is the only thing Molly and I have ever fought about.”

  Lindsey could feel Robbie’s gaze on her face and knew he was thinking the same thing she was. Had Molly gotten fed up with Olive’s presence in her married life and murdered Olive?

  “I’m sorry, that probably came out wrong,” Kyle said. “Molly and I have been together for eighteen years, we have two beautiful kids and we love each other very much. Molly knows that her place in my life and my heart is secure. She would never harm Olive.”

  “Of course not,” Lindsey said, as if she hadn’t been thinking that very thing.

  “That doesn’t mean Olive didn’t get on her last nerve,” Kyle said. “Olive seemed to think that just because we were married at one time, she could still call on me for any emergency or crisis and I would take care of it. Because of my own ridiculous guilt for ending the marriage, I would always answer her call. It became a sticking point between Molly and me.”

  There was a rap on the door, and then Molly came in bearing a tray with four cups of coffee. Robbie and Kyle rose to their feet, and Robbie took the tray from her hands, making Molly blush, and put it on the coffee table in front of her.

  Molly handed everyone a steaming mug and took the empty seat near her husband’s. Lindsey noted that Molly probably had about twenty years on her but that she would have resembled Lindsey even more closely when Olive had first met her. She thought about Olive’s hostility. She couldn’t believe that the woman had gone after her because of her resemblance to her ex-husband’s wife, but given that Olive clearly had a vengeful soul, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise.

  “So, what sort of memorial for Olive were you considering?” Kyle asked. He stirred sugar and milk into his coffee before looking up at Lindsey.

  Lindsey had put zero thought into the memorial. When she had used the same tactic to grill the library board about their whereabouts during the murder, they had come up with a memorial garden with a bench on the east side of the building. She decided to go with it now.

  “We were thinking a small garden with a bench with her name engraved on it,” she said.

  Molly snorted. Kyle looked at her, and she shrugged. She gave them an apologetic smile and put her coffee cup back on the tray.

  “Sorry, but I’m having a heck of time imagining Olive’s name on a bench. It seems so personable, which isn’t the first word that springs to mind when I think of her,” she said. Then she sighed. “It might be best if you discuss this without me. I’ll go get some cookies.” She turned to Robbie and asked, “Do you like oatmeal raisin?”

  “Love them,” he said.

  She nodded and left the room.

  “Sorry about that,” Kyle said. “She really has put up with a lot from Olive, so I can’t blame her.”

  “How long were you and Olive married?” Lindsey asked.

  “Eleven years,” he said. “We met in college and were married right after, but being a doctor’s wife is hard. I was in residency for much of our marriage, leaving her alone. It wasn’t her fault . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and Robbie and Lindsey exchanged a glance.

  “What wasn’t her fault?” Robbie pressed.

  “She was lonely,” Kyle said. He took a sip of coffee. “These things happen.”

  “She found someone to make her less lonely?” Robbie asked.

  Lindsey was impressed with his tact but then remembered the British talent for understatement. Truly, it was a gift.

  “Yes, after a couple of separations, one of which was over a year, we finally decided to call it quits,” Kyle said. “We parted on friendly terms. I knew that our life together wasn’t enough for her, and I was fine with it. I really just wanted her to be happy.”

  “But then you met Molly,” Lindsey said.

  “Yes, Olive didn’t like that,” he said. “It was a bit like she didn’t want me but she didn’t want anyone else to have me either.”

  “Was she always like that?” Robbie asked.

  “Yes. I don’t have a clinical diagnosis, but I do believe she had NPD, narcissistic personality disorder,” Kyle said. “It made getting married again . . . difficult.”

  “Kyle, have the police been here?” Lindsey asked. She knew full well that Emma would have been here already, but she wanted to see if she could get Kyle to tell them what he’d told the police and maybe give them some insight into the police investigation.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “The spouse, even an ex-spouse, is always pretty high up on the suspect list, or so they tell me.”

  “But you’re not a person of interest, surely,” Robbie said. He delivered the line with just the right amount of disbelief.

  “No, my son had a football game—he’s in the marching band and they play at halftime—and I was there in the stands, watching the whole time. I was surrounded by most of our town. You can’t beat an alibi like that.”

  “No, you can’t,” Lindsey agreed. She felt as if they
had just smacked into another dead end, not surprisingly, because she couldn’t fathom a motive for Olive’s ex-husband to have killed his ex-wife.

  Kyle asked more questions about the memorial garden and bench the library was planning, and Lindsey answered as best she could as she’d only hit the library board with the idea that very day.

  Both Lindsey and Robbie asked leading questions about Olive and who might have wanted to cause her harm, but Kyle obviously didn’t like speculating about such a thing. And any talk about Olive’s personality or her narcissism causing someone to want to kill her was met with uncomfortable silence. It seemed to Lindsey that while Kyle understood that Olive had been difficult, he still felt a loyalty to his first wife that kept him from acknowledging that she may have pushed someone too far.

  Molly came back with cookies just as Lindsey and Robbie were getting ready to leave. The cookies were warm and chewy, and at Molly’s insistence they each took a couple for the drive.

  “Thanks for your time, Kyle,” Lindsey said. “I’ll keep you apprised of what happens with the memorial if you’d like.”

  “I would, thank you,” he said.

  “I’ll see you out,” Molly said. She closed the office door behind them, leaving her husband behind as she took Lindsey and Robbie back through the house.

  When they reached the front door, Molly glanced behind her as if to check that her husband was out of earshot. Then she opened the door and led them outside. Standing on the front porch, she met their gaze with a determined one of her own.

  “Kyle might not like to talk negatively about that needy old cow, but I don’t mind a bit,” she said. “That woman made my life a misery when Kyle and I first got together, so much so that I almost dumped him. She followed me, hired a detective to dig around in my past, made up vicious lies and rumors about me, anything to discredit me with Kyle.”

  “Wow,” Robbie said. “No wonder you don’t seem overly sad at her passing.”

  “If I’d had anything in my past, she would have used it to break up Kyle and me, and I wouldn’t have my children or my husband or the life I love,” Molly said. “I’m sure of it. And the thought of never having to take another call from her at two in the morning when she’s having a ‘crisis’? Yeah, not really going to miss that.”

  “Was she like that the entire time you’ve been married?” Lindsey asked.

  “No, she’d disappear every now and again, usually when she got a new boyfriend. That would keep her occupied for a year or two,” Molly said. “But even after we had our son and daughter, if she suddenly became single, she would come back into our lives, playing the damsel in distress, but I knew what she was really doing.”

  “What was that?” Robbie asked.

  “She was trying to get Kyle back,” Molly said. “She thought all she had to do was crook her little finger and he’d come running. She really thought he was still hers.”

  “She didn’t,” Robbie said. He sounded like a fourteen-year-old girl, and Lindsey had to turn her face away to hide her smile.

  “Oh yeah, she did,” Molly said. “She’d call him constantly for help with this, advice about that—it was ridiculous. Thankfully, as soon as she found another boyfriend, she’d forget about us for a while.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would want Olive dead?” Lindsey asked. “Anyone in her life that she might have complained to Kyle about?”

  Molly tapped her forefinger to her lower lip. “So many people, so many motives. Truly, to know Olive Boyle was to want to kill her.”

  Robbie cringed and Molly winced.

  “Too harsh?”

  “A smidgeon,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “My bitterness lingers. I suppose either one of her long-term boyfriends might be looking to make their separation more permanent, assuming she was as clingy with them as she’s been to my Kyle. Then there’s her sister. There was a big old spat about their father’s estate last year when their mother died, which was another time she kept calling Kyle for moral support, legal advice, a shoulder to cry on.”

  Lindsey tried to picture her life with Sully if he had an ex who kept cropping up. She wouldn’t like it. As far as she could tell, Molly should be up for sainthood.

  “We should ask the former bofriends about the memorial, don’t you think?” Robbie asked Lindsey and she nodded. He turned back to Molly. “What were the boyfriends’ names?” He fished out his cell phone, and as Molly spelled the names, he typed them into his notes app. “And the sister, do you know where she lives?”

  “She’s in the next town over in Madison,” Molly said. “She lives on the Davidson family estate—you can’t miss it. But why do you want to talk to her?”

  “Oh, same reason, to see if she approves of the memorial,” Lindsey said. She could feel Robbie staring at her as she continued their whopper, but she didn’t even blink.

  Molly nodded as if this made perfect sense.

  “Thank you, Molly, you’ve been very helpful, love,” Robbie said.

  Molly blushed a deep shade of scarlet and then waved a hand at them. “Oh, it was nothing, really. If you have any more questions, stop by anytime, like Wednesday night at seven when my bunco group meets, and if you could just say you’re an old friend, that’d be perfect.”

  Lindsey grinned. She couldn’t help it. She liked Molly Boyle. With a wave she and Robbie headed for his car.

  Once they were seated inside, Robbie glanced at his phone. “According to my GPS, we’re five minutes away from the Davidson estate,” he said. “What do you say?”

  19

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  Robbie grinned and shot out of the driveway and back onto the main road.

  Lindsey glanced at her phone. Evening was rapidly approaching, so she sent a quick text to Nancy and Sully, letting them know where she was and when she’d be home. She had learned over the past couple of years, the hard way, to always let people know where she was.

  The GPS directed them to the road where the Davidson estate was located. Robbie flipped on his turn signal and headed down a gravel drive bordered by enormous, colorful maple trees with wide fields on both sides. The fields soon gave way to a large marsh, where a narrow stream cut through the tall grass. They drove over a wooden bridge, wide enough for only one car at a time, and continued until the marsh turned back into fields. Up ahead a large stone house loomed, looking like something out of another era.

  The structure made Lindsey think of the library’s pages, Heather and Perry. She couldn’t help but picture them here, playing Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. She almost expected to see Perry in an artistically tied cravat and waistcoat giving Heather his arm so they could take a turn in the garden as she strolled beside him in an empire-waist gown and a wide-brimmed bonnet.

  “Posh, isn’t it?” Robbie asked. “I thought Olive had a bit of toff about her.”

  “In American, please,” Lindsey said.

  “Oy, let me rephrase,” Robbie said. “Pricey crib, don’t you think? Olive was most def a one percenter. Word.”

  He parked the car in front of the house beside an older Volvo that looked to have seen better days but was covered in bumper stickers from Alaska to Florida and every state in between. Lindsey had the feeling that whoever owned the car kept it most likely because of sentimental attachment than functionality.

  “Ah.” Lindsey laughed. “I agree. Do you think the memorial excuse will work on the sister? Maybe it’s too common for this sort of family.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  They climbed out of the car and approached the door. Given what Molly had told them about the estrangement between the two sisters, Lindsey wasn’t sure how to handle the conversation. Still, the sister had been at the service, so she must have felt something for Olive—obligation at the very least.

  Robbie rang the bell, and they wa
ited in silence. Seconds passed. There was no sound coming from inside the house. He glanced at Lindsey and she nodded. He rang the bell again. Still, there was no response.

  Robbie stepped back and studied the windows above them. It was beginning to get dark, but no lights shone from inside.

  “Maybe she’s not home,” Lindsey said. It was getting cold and she was feeling it in her toes. She stamped her feet as if that would kick-start the blood in her veins and heat up her shoes.

  “Did you hear that?” Robbie asked.

  They stood still, listening. Very quietly, just over the whispery sound of the wind in the trees that surrounded the house, was the methodical snick, snick, snick of something metal.

  “Follow me,” Robbie said. He stepped off the front stoop and began to follow the noise, with his head cocked to the side as if that helped him track the noise better.

  Lindsey hurried behind him, hoping they didn’t find something she wasn’t prepared to explain to the police, like another dead body.

  A middle-aged woman, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and overalls, was standing next to a wheelbarrow while snipping away at an overgrown rose bush as if trying to tame its long, leggy vines.

  “Ms. Davidson?” Robbie asked.

  The woman started with a small yelp and turned to face them. Lindsey recognized her from the church service for Olive. She had only seen her profile before, and now she was taken aback by how much this woman resembled her sister: the same arching brows and narrow nose over thin lips and a prominent chin. While Olive had been painfully thin, her sister was well rounded, and her medium brown hair had a touch of gray in it. Lindsey assumed that like her sister, she was somewhere in her fifties.

  “Oh, you gave me a fright,” she said.

  “So sorry,” Robbie said. “You are Ms. Davidson?”

  “Yes, that’s me. How may I help you?” Her gaze darted from Lindsey to Robbie as if trying to decide if she should know them or not.

  “We’re here about your sister, Olive,” Lindsey said.