Due or Die

by Jenn McKinlay

  “You already are.” Lindsey laughed. “Back in a few.”

  She stopped by the circulation desk and offered to bring Ann Marie and Ms. Cole some chowder as well. Ann Marie was game but Ms. Cole declined with a sniff. Lindsey suspected she was still miffy about the backdated check-in. Ah well, she’d just have to get over it.

  Lindsey stepped on the rubber mat and the doors slid open. A blast of frosty air smacked her face and she sucked in a breath.

  Ducking her head, she hurried out into the cold and headed for the pier. The packed snow on the road had melted just enough to freeze again after the abrupt temperature drop from the second half of the storm and had formed a nice sheen of ice.

  Lindsey stepped carefully but still managed to half slide across the road as she navigated the treacherous conditions.

  The parking lot of the Anchor was surprisingly clear, but then again, because it had become a meeting place for the plows, it had gotten the most use over the past few days.

  She strode past the Anchor, keeping the man in the yellow waders in sight. She wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to broach the subject of Markus Rushton with him, but she’d worry about that when she got there.

  The pier, made of thick solid planks, hadn’t been shoveled, and the snow had drifted over to one side of it while the footprints of the many boat owners had stomped the deep snow into matted patches.

  Lindsey approached the boat, noting that the name Pilar was written in a forest green script across the stern. Interesting.

  Dale was up on his boat sweeping the snow off the bow. Huge chunks fell over into the water with a splash.

  Lindsey could hear him muttering while he swept. She wasn’t positive, but it sounded like a nice string of profanity he had going. She hated to interrupt.

  For the first time, she debated the wisdom of approaching a man known to be volatile when he was irked.

  But she was only going to ask him some questions; it wasn’t like she was going to accuse him of murder or anything.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  The boat went silent and then a knitted hat appeared over the side. Unshaven, with a jailhouse tattoo on his neck of what looked like a dragon or maybe a mermaid on steroids, and sporting a gold incisor that sparkled in the morning sun when he sneered, Dale Wilcox looked like he ate small children for breakfast.

  CHAPTER

  20

  BRIAR CREEK

  PUBLIC LIBRARY

  Lindsey swallowed. She briefly wondered if her storm chaser boots could get her out of here before the man on the boat jumped over the side and whacked her with his broom.

  “What do you want?” the man growled, glaring at her. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Sorry,” Lindsey said. She was pleased that her voice didn’t betray how nervous she felt. “You know, the original Pilar was custom built in 1934 in Brooklyn.”

  “By Wheeler Shipyards,” he said.

  “Oh, so you did know.” Lindsey smiled.

  “That’s not surprising,” he said. His scowl relaxed into a wary look. “I’m a fisherman. What is surprising is that you know.”

  “Not really.” Lindsey shook her head. “I’m a librarian.”

  “Ah, then you also know, ‘a man is never lost at sea,’” he said.

  “The Old Man and the Sea,” she said. “Brilliant book.”

  “Hemingway was a brilliant writer,” he said. He looked her up and down. Not in an insolent way, but as if trying to get the measure of her. “I read all of his works when I was in prison.”

  “I think he would have liked that,” Lindsey said.

  Dale indicated the ladder with a shrug. “Feel free to climb aboard.”

  Lindsey had a feeling he was testing her, to see if she was brave enough to be on the boat with the big, bad ex-convict. For some reason, she wanted to pass his test and show him that she wasn’t afraid.

  She stepped forward and pulled herself up the short ladder. Dale continued sweeping, completely ignoring her. At a loss, Lindsey saw a second broom propped in the corner, so she picked it up and began to sweep the snow off the side. Dale paused to watch her for a moment and then set back to work.

  They worked silently for a while. There wasn’t much snow left to sweep, but the stuff she managed to push off the starboard side fell into the water with a satisfying splash. When they were done, she handed the broom back to Dale.

  “You know, if you like Hemingway, there are other authors I could hook you up with,” she said. “Library cards are free.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” he asked. “To drum up business for the library? Things must be slow.”

  “No, actually, I came by to find out if you killed Markus Rushton,” she said.

  Dale’s mouth opened in a small O and he blinked. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” she said. “Right now the police are focusing on his wife, but everyone knows you had an altercation with him a few weeks ago over a parking space.”

  Dale’s brow lowered, bringing his knit cap with it so it rested just over his eyes. “So, naturally, because I am an ex-convict, you think I couldn’t control my anger and I went and shot him over a stupid parking space. You know, it’s assumptions like that that made Hemingway hate women.”

  “No, I think it was more due to his domineering mother and a crushing heartbreak from his relationship with his nurse while he was recuperating after being injured in the war,” Lindsey said.

  Dale grunted and looked out at the sea. “I should know better than to debate a librarian.”

  Lindsey lowered her head and smiled. People were wrong about Dale. He had a certain grouchy charm.

  “For your information, the police have already been by to question me. I don’t own a gun and I have an alibi. I was visiting my mother in Madison. She’s in an assisted-care facility over there, and the place has the sign-in log to prove how long I was there. Satisfied?”

  Lindsey sighed. “I’ve offended you.”

  “You think?” he asked. “You can’t accuse a guy of murder and not expect him to get a little testy.”

  “Fair enough,” Lindsey said. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help out a friend.”

  “I know,” Dale said. He glanced away, and Lindsey was surprised by the sudden softening of his features. “Carrie is a good woman. She was always nice to me even when we were kids. She never judged me because my family was poor. If I hadn’t gotten sent to jail…well, you can’t go back.”

  “What do you mean?” Lindsey asked.

  Dale shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. She deserved better than that mealymouthed whiner. I don’t know who shot him, but they did her a favor.”

  His words were harsh, but Lindsey knew he was only saying what everyone else seemed to think of Markus Rushton. She glanced at her watch and realized she was pushing it if she was going to get back to the library with food within the hour.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” she said. She held out her hand.

  Dale hesitated and then clasped her gloved hand. His grip was firm but not punishing.

  “Maybe I’ll stop by and see what you’ve got in that library of yours,” he said.

  “I’d like that,” Lindsey said. She climbed down the ladder and waved as Dale stood and watched her go with a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “So, I know that Mary’s clam chowder could cause a person to walk a mile on shards of glass sans shoes, but I have a sneaky suspicion that there was something else motivating you to go for soup,” Beth said.

  Lindsey dipped her clam fritter into her chowder and took a bite. It was rude to talk with your mouth full, after all.

  Beth thumped her spoon on the table. “Seriously? You’re not talking? But I’m your best friend!”

  Lindsey swallowed. “There’s nothing to say.”

  Truly, her conversation with Dale was a bust. He had a solid alibi and she had discovered that the man had layers. She
didn’t really think he was as bad as people said. In fact, she wondered if he cultivated the bad-boy image just to keep people at a distance.

  “Really?” Beth asked. “Are you trying to tell me that there is nothing going on between you and Sully? That you didn’t go over to the pier today to see him?”

  Lindsey choked on a bit of clam and had to cough into her napkin before she could respond. “Are you saying I went over there to see Sully?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I didn’t, and as far as I know, there is nothing going on between us,” Lindsey said.

  “Oh, please.” Beth scoffed. “Everyone knows you two like each other.”

  Lindsey glanced around the small break room where they sat eating their lunch. Thankfully, no one else was on break right now.

  She leaned over the table and whispered, “If you must know, I went to the pier to see Dale Wilcox.”

  “The ex-convict?” Beth gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Nancy said he had a road-rage incident with Markus Rushton just a few weeks ago.”

  “And you questioned him about it?” Beth’s eyes went wide. “Lindsey! Don’t you know the amateur sleuth is never supposed to go off on her own? This isn’t an Agatha Christie novel and you’re not Miss Marple. You could have gotten yourself into a heap of trouble.”

  “Well, given that I pretty much accused him of murdering Rushton,” she said, “I concede your point. But I didn’t go off alone. I happened to be going for lunch and saw Dale Wilcox on his boat. I was simply being neighborly.”

  Beth slapped her hand to her forehead in exasperation. “You’re lucky you’re still alive!”

  “Nah, I don’t think Dale is as bad as everyone says,” she said. “He reads Hemingway.”

  “Didn’t Hemingway hate women?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know if I would say hate exactly,” Lindsey said. “But, yes, he had misogynistic tendencies.”

  “So, Ernest had issues,” Beth said. “And you decided that it was a good idea to question a fan of his about committing murder. Yeah, this all makes perfect sense.”

  “I did discover one thing,” Lindsey said. Then she paused, wondering if she should voice her speculation. “Don’t say anything, but I think Dale had feelings for Carrie when they were younger.”

  “How so?”

  “I think he only talked to me today because he knew I was asking questions to help out Carrie. And he got this look on his face, like, well, like he was very fond of her.”

  “Interesting. You don’t think that fondness would have caused him to kill her husband, do you?”

  “No, his alibi must be airtight or the police would have taken him in by now,” Lindsey said.

  “So what’s next?” Beth asked.

  “Well, Carrie has asked us all to meet her out by the storage shed this evening so we can try to move the Friends items to an undamaged shed. I imagine we’re going to have to toss a lot of the ruined books.”

  “I’m in,” Beth said. “My house is already dug out, so I’m happy to pitch in.”

  “Thanks,” Lindsey said. “The more hands the better.”

  She did not mention that she planned to have a chat with the other two people Markus had offended recently, Clyde Perkins and Della Navarro. Since she didn’t know if it would lead to anything significant, she figured she’d keep it to herself. Unlike the warehouse, the fewer people involved in this the better.

  “Last call for hot chocolate and donuts!” Mimi Seitler shouted as she headed into the storage facility office, where she had a huge pot of hot chocolate plugged into the wall. Carrie had brought a big orange and pink box full of donuts, which was in there as well.

  After hauling twenty-five boxes of books from the old shed to the new one, Lindsey felt like the hot chocolate was the only thing that might bring back the feeling in her toes. She trotted into the office and filled a foam cup before heading back out into the cold.

  They’d been here for a couple of hours now. Carrie had picked up her and Beth after work, and she’d brought Heathcliff with her because he had been cooped up all day and needed the exercise. He had been overjoyed to see Lindsey and had been chasing the snowballs that Lindsey and the others threw for him for the past half hour.

  Lindsey stamped her feet on the ground. It was a great turnout and the work was going quickly. There had to be at least fifteen people here, including both Edmund and Bill Sint. Mercifully, there was no sign of Marjorie Bilson.

  A car turned into the small parking lot, its headlights sweeping over the area. Then again, maybe Marjorie had decided to show after all. Lindsey stood up straighter, bracing herself for a possible confrontation.

  Before the car had even stopped, the passenger door flew open and out jumped a young woman. She had long, dark hair and was yanking on her winter coat as her eyes scanned the people in front of her.

  “Mom!” she cried.

  CHAPTER

  21

  BRIAR CREEK

  PUBLIC LIBRARY

  Carrie popped out of the new shed and cried, “Kim! Kyle!” Then she broke into a run.

  The driver shut off the car and got out, too. He was a tall young man with the same dark hair as his mother and his sister. In fact, the three of them had the exact same face, with big brown eyes, delicate noses and strong jaws.

  Carrie opened her arms wide as she ran, and the three of them tumbled into a group hug in the middle of the parking lot. Lindsey turned away to give them some privacy.

  “Her kids?” Beth asked as she joined Lindsey.

  “I’m assuming.”

  “Good. She could use the support.”

  It was several minutes later when Carrie brought her grown children over to meet Lindsey and the others.

  “Kyle, Kim, this is Lindsey Norris, the director of the library, and Beth Stanley you already know.”

  “I remember the parties you used to throw for the teens every time a new Harry Potter book came out,” Kim said.

  “And I remember that you did the best artwork for my programs,” Beth said and gave the girl a hug. “I still have some of those posters. How are you enjoying RISD?”

  “I love it,” she said.

  “Welcome to Briar Creek,” Kyle said to Lindsey and extended his hand.

  Lindsey took his gloved hand in hers. He had a good handshake.

  “Thank you. It’s a lovely town,” she said. She paused and then added, “I’m very sorry for your loss.” She turned to include Kim in her condolences.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Beth said.

  Both Kim and Kyle nodded, and Lindsey realized they probably weren’t used to talking about it. It had taken them a few days to get here. And now that they were in their hometown, it must be surreal to confront their father’s shooting.

  Kim shivered and Carrie frowned, looking full of motherly concern.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m staying at Nancy Peyton’s place, and she said you two could stay with me. She has enough room so long as you two don’t mind bunk beds. Honestly, I haven’t been able to face going back to the house yet.”

  Kyle put his hand on his mother’s shoulder. “We’ll do it together, Mom, when you’re ready.”

  Carrie blew out a breath. For the first time in days, she had some color in her cheeks. Having her children here was a real boon for her. Lindsey was glad. She shouldn’t have to bear all of this alone.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to go,” Owen Pullman said. “I have an appointment I have to keep.”

  “No problem,” Mimi Seitler said. She joined their group and handed a hot chocolate to Kim and another to Kyle. “Finish this up for me, will you?”

  They both said thank you, looking grateful for the hot beverage.

  “We’re pretty much done,” Mimi said. “Can I dismiss the troops, Carrie?”

  “Absolutely,” Carrie said. “And thanks for your help.”

  “Anytime.” Mimi lifted the empty pot of chocolate and carried it to her c
ar.

  “If it’s okay, we’ll just finish up and lock up after we leave?” Carrie asked Owen. “We just have a few more boxes to move.”

  Owen scratched his bald head. “I don’t see why not. Just latch the gate once you get all of your cars out of here.”

  “We will,” Carrie said. “Okay, you two, head over to Nancy’s. Kyle, I might need your help running an inventory of the boxes. There should be a couple of boxes of rare books, but I haven’t had time to look for them.”

  “I’ll be happy to help,” he said. “We can make a sweet Excel file that will allow you to tabulate the value of each item.”

  Carrie raised her eyebrows. “Now that would be handy.” She gave her kids each a kiss on the cheek and said, “I’ll see you at Nancy’s.”

  “Are you sure—” Kyle began, but Carrie cut him off.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes. Go before you freeze.”

  With one more hug, Kyle and Kim got into their car and headed over to Nancy’s house.

  “I’m going to thank everyone for coming,” Carrie said. “Then we can lock up the new shed and I’ll give you and Beth a ride home.”

  “Sounds good,” Lindsey said. “Good job, President.”

  “Thanks.” Carrie smiled.

  Lindsey watched as Carrie gathered them all together. The group seemed pleased with what they had done. Even Bill had pitched in, and his usually fastidious attire sported dust streaks. It made him seem infinitely less insufferable.

  Lindsey wandered down to the old shed. It was essentially a steel room about ten feet high and twenty feet deep and fourteen wide. She glanced up to examine the ceiling. It had been blown wide open. Several sheds on either side had sustained some damage as well, but this one had gotten the worst of it.

  When she had spoken to Owen earlier, he had theorized that the hurricane-force winds had found a loose metal panel and ripped it open, dragging the ones around it with it.

  But Lindsey remembered what Sully had told her and she had to agree. This didn’t look nature-made.

  “That storm was really something, wasn’t it?”