On Borrowed Time

by Jenn McKinlay

  Emma nodded. She clapped him on the shoulder, looking pleased. “That’s exactly what I noticed. Nice work, Kirkland.”

  He beamed at her, and Lindsey was surprised he didn’t start wagging. Lindsey bounced on her feet in the hallway. She was really ready to move away now and go search for her brother.

  “Emma—” Lindsey began, but the medical examiner pushed past her into the room. “Hi, Dr. Griffiths.”

  He gave her a surly nod and Lindsey reminded herself that he wasn’t a bad guy. He liked to read travel books about Europe and dreamed of backpacking there one day, but Lindsey suspected that his pteromerhanophobia held him back and “one day” might turn into “never” if he didn’t get over his fear of flying.

  “Go ahead and move the people in the library,” Emma said to Kirkland.

  He nodded, looking reluctant to leave. Dr. Griffiths, a small man with a bald head, which was surrounded by a gray fringe that stuck out all around his head just like the bushy gray mustache over his upper lip, gave Kirkland no choice as he elbowed the rookie out of the way.

  “Again, Plewicki?” Griffiths asked as he snapped on his own blue gloves. “What is it you people don’t get about being a sleepy coastal community?”

  “Sorry, Al,” she said. She held her hands wide. “What can I say? Briar Creek has become a hot bed of murder and intrigue.”

  Griffiths snorted and the hairs on his mustache fluttered. Lindsey turned away. She had no interest in watching this. Kirkland was rooted to the spot, obviously fascinated to see what would happen next.

  “Come on.” Lindsey nudged him with an elbow. “You think this is interesting? We have patrons we have to disconnect from their Internet session. You may want to keep your Taser handy.”

  “Seriously?” Kirkland asked, his eyes wide.

  “Haven’t been in the library at closing, have you?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  “Well, follow me, you’re in for a treat,” she said. She wondered if he could tell she was being sarcastic. A glance at his face, which was eager, made her suspect that he could not.

  Lindsey saw Officer Wilcox standing by the door and noted that he and Kirkland exchanged nods. Reassured that everyone was following the same game plan, she cleared her throat, preparing to address the library.

  “Everyone, I’d like to have your attention,” she said. A few people turned in her direction, but for the most part she was ignored. Lindsey sighed. She really needed to consider a public address system. “Everyone, please, we have a situation. I need you all to move into the story time room for a few minutes while we get everything sorted out.”

  Her voice sounded strained even to her own ears. She forced a reassuring smile. “The officers will escort you back there, and you should be free to go in a matter of minutes.”

  “What’s going on?” demanded Peter Schwartz. He was a crotchety older gentleman known for complaining about everything from the hardness of the chairs to the quality of the air-conditioning. And yet he came to the library every day to read the newspaper of which he was not a good sharer.

  “The officers will explain in a moment,” Lindsey said. “Please, if you’ll follow me.”

  “No, I’m not going,” Mr. Schwartz said. “Unless the building is on fire or there’s a bomb in it, I’m going on with my day.”

  He snapped open the newspaper he’d been reading and returned to the sports page as if he were oblivious to the people around him moving reasonably to the back room.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but our orders are to have everyone gather in the back room,” Kirkland said.

  Lindsey admired his diplomacy. She knew from several accidental fire alarms over the past few years that there was always one customer who refused to budge, as if whatever they were doing was so much more important than avoiding being burned to death. It boggled.

  She glanced at the bank of Internet computers and saw that Beth was efficiently locking the sessions in order to get the people moving. Several of their regulars had already gone into the story room to await further instructions.

  Ms. Cole and Ann Marie Martin, the part-time circulation clerk, were also helping to guide people in the direction of the story room. Not for the first time, Lindsey was grateful that she had such a crackerjack staff who did as she asked without question.

  “My taxes pay your salary!” Mr. Schwartz rose out of his seat and stood up on his tiptoes, trying to intimidate Officer Kirkland.

  “Excellent.” Kirkland leaned forward, forcing Mr. Schwartz backward just a little. “Then while we’re in the back room there, we can have a long discussion about why I deserve a raise.”

  Mr. Schwartz looked as if he was going to choke on his own spit. Lindsey stepped forward before he stroked out on the spot, not wanting to add another body to her quota for the day.

  The next time someone made the observation that working in a library must be lovely because it was so quiet, she didn’t think she’d be able to hold back her laughter.

  “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Schwartz,” Lindsey said. “I know that having a senior member of the community present will be very helpful in our current crisis.”

  “Crisis?” Mr. Schwartz asked. He puffed himself up and walked beside her toward the back room. He shot Officer Kirkland a nasty look. “Well, anything I can do to help the police with their job.”

  Lindsey glanced over her shoulder at Kirkland. He gave her a small smile, and she wondered if they had a course about dealing with difficult people at the police academy, and then she wondered if she could audit it.

  * * *

  Once they were gathered in the room, Lindsey let Officer Wilcox take over mediating the situation. She assumed there was a police protocol that he would follow to let the people know what was happening without causing them to panic.

  Meanwhile, she huddled in the corner with her staff.

  “All right, Lindsey, spill it,” Beth said. “What’s going on?”

  Ms. Cole and Ann Marie completed their circle, and Lindsey gestured for them to shuffle to the side out of earshot of the rest of the people.

  “After our crafternoon meeting today, I went into the back room, where we usually meet,” Lindsey began. She closed her eyes to steady herself as she recalled the horror of what she’d found. With a sharp exhale, she finished by saying, “When I opened the door, I found the window open and a dead body facedown on the floor.”

  “What?” squawked Beth. “You found a body in the library?”

  “Shh,” Ms. Cole hushed her and then glanced around to make sure no one had heard.

  Beth gave her an annoyed look, but lowered her voice. “I just don’t understand how it’s possible. That door is always locked unless there is a meeting under way.”

  “Who was it? Was it a patron?” Ann Marie put her hand to her throat as if to steady herself.

  “No, it was a stranger,” Lindsey said. “I didn’t recognize him nor did Chief Plewicki.”

  The other three visibly relaxed. And Lindsey understood that in a community this small there was a sense of looking out for each other, even for pesky people like Peter Schwartz.

  “What’s going to happen now?” Beth asked. “And why do they want us all in this room?”

  “I think the chief wants to make sure no one knew the man,” Lindsey said. “Also she probably wants to know if anyone saw anything suspicious.”

  The others nodded. Officer Kirkland was taking down the names of all the other people in the room. He had just finished when the doors opened and Chief Plewicki walked in.

  The room immediately erupted with questions, but she held up her hands, motioning for everyone to be quiet.

  “Thank you all for your cooperation,” she said. “Due to the nature of the event that has taken place out front, my officers and I will be taking you out of the room individually, starting
with families first.”

  Mr. Schwartz’s face screwed up into an unhappy knot, but Emma froze him with a look.

  “Unless, of course, you’d rather we keep the children in here even longer.”

  As if on cue, a baby began to wail, and everyone agreed that its family should be the first interviewed. Lindsey and her staff were excused to return to work with the understanding that they would be interviewed last.

  When Lindsey arrived out front, it was to see the medical examiner wheeling the stranger’s body out in a body bag. She went directly to her office and called the mayor’s right-hand man, Herb Gunderson, to let him know the situation.

  Herb was a meticulous dot every i and cross every t man, who ran the town’s department head meetings with a precision that left them all napping; still, she preferred breaking the bad news to him rather than the mayor.

  “Herb Gun—” That was as far as he got before Lindsey interrupted.

  “Herb, it’s Lindsey, we have a situation at the library,” she said.

  “What sort of situation?” he asked.

  She knew without seeing him that he had just sat up in his chair and smoothed his tie with the palm of his hand. He did that every time he was addressing an issue.

  “Chief Plewicki is here with two officers as well as Dr. Griffiths, the medical examiner,” Lindsey said.

  “The ME?” Herb gulped. “Just what the heck is going on over there?”

  Lindsey sighed. There was no gentle way to put this. “We . . . I found a dead body in the library.”

  “What? Where? When?” He fired the questions with the same sharp report as bullets out of a gun.

  “Dead body, meeting room, half an hour ago,” she returned fire.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “No idea,” Lindsey said. “I’m just giving you a heads-up. I’m sure Emma will call with a full report as soon as she’s done talking to the patrons and staff here.”

  Herb was silent for a moment as if meticulously choosing his words or maybe processing the bomb Lindsey had detonated on him.

  “Is there anyone there that I should know about beforehand?” he asked.

  It took Lindsey a second to get his drift and then she got it. “Peter Schwartz is here.”

  “Ah,” Herb said. In one syllable he managed to convey the tortured anguish of the public servant when faced with a terminally whiny member of the public.

  “I know he’s quite the letter writer,” Lindsey said. “He leaves us lots of helpful notes.”

  “Well, after this, I imagine he’ll have enough to fill a book.”

  “Did you just tell a joke, Herb?” Lindsey asked in surprise.

  “You know, I think I might have,” Herb said. “Forgive me, obviously I’m not myself.”

  “No, it was funny,” Lindsey said with a chuckle. “And quite appropriate.”

  “Unless you need me for anything else, Lindsey, I imagine I need to get the mayor up to speed.”

  “Good luck with that.” She hung up feeling a bit sorry for Herb and the meeting he was about to walk into, then again, that was why he made the big bucks.

  Lindsey took a moment to check her cell phone. There were no incoming texts or calls from Jack. She then called her apartment. Maybe Jack had gone there and hadn’t had a chance to tell her. No one answered, so she hung up and checked her messages. There was one automated sales call for a home security system, but that was it. There was no word from Jack.

  Despite the victim having been found in the library, Lindsey felt that ultimately the dead body was going to be Emma’s problem more than hers, which was fine, because finding her brother was her number one priority.

  Lindsey left her office to find the library cleared and Officer Kirkland talking to Beth while the other officer talked to Ms. Cole and Ann Marie. Emma Plewicki was talking on her cell phone, and Lindsey suspected by the set of her jaw that she didn’t like what she was hearing.

  “Fine, but call me the minute you learn anything,” Emma said into the phone. She pressed the front of her phone and shoved it into a holder on her belt.

  “Bad news?” Lindsey asked.

  “Griffiths says there’s a backlog of bodies at his office,” she said. “Mine is in the queue but it may take them longer than usual to ID him.”

  Lindsey glanced around the library, noting that it was all but empty. It appeared that everyone but Mr. Schwartz, who had resumed his seat with his paper, had fled. She couldn’t blame them. There was a part of her that wished she could escape the building, too, but then again, she wanted to be here in case Jack turned up.

  “You ready for a few questions?” Emma asked her.

  “Sure, fire away,” Lindsey said.

  “Why did you have your crafternoon meeting in a different location today?” Emma asked. Her tone was abrupt and no nonsense, and Lindsey had the paranoid thought that maybe Emma knew about Jack and was testing her. But no, that couldn’t be.

  “Um . . . it was cold in there, you know, our usual room,” Lindsey said. She hated lying, but given that she had already told the same fib to her best friend, she couldn’t really bust out the truth now, could she?

  “Was the window open when you went in?” Emma asked. Her sharp brown eyes were studying Lindsey’s face, making her feel uncomfortable.

  Logically, Lindsey knew that Emma was just encouraging her to try and remember all that she could, but knowing that she was being less than truthful made Lindsey’s skin prickle and she felt as if she had guilt written all over her face.

  “Yes,” she said. She rationalized that Jack had told her the window was unlocked, so it could be construed as being open and was therefore not a complete fabrication.

  “Then what did you do?” Emma asked.

  “I decided to switch the location for our meeting and locked up the room, planning to check back later,” Lindsey said. Truth. “And when I went back, I found the body.” Also, truth.

  Emma frowned at her. “The first time you were in the room, did you close the window?”

  Lindsey refused to lie as it could only lead to more lies so instead, she went for vague, which judging by the politicians she saw on the news these days, was probably the best way to handle it.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I meant to, but it must have slipped my mind what with rushing off to change rooms and such.”

  Emma didn’t look convinced and Lindsey couldn’t blame her. An awkward moment passed between them, which mercifully was interrupted by the front doors sliding open and two men rushing into the building.

  “Lindsey!” they cried her name in unison and hurried forward.

  Emma glanced from them back to Lindsey and then grinned at her. In a teasing voice, she said, “Yeah, well, I could see how you might forget to shut a window when you have so much on your mind.”

  Lindsey gave her a weak smile in return and had to squash the urge to hug the stuffing out of both Robbie Vine and Mike Sullivan as they hurried toward her. They were saving her hide more than they would ever know.

  “Are you all right?” Sully demanded. He reached her first and hugged her close.

  “We heard there was a nasty incident in the library,” Robbie said as he waited for Sully to release her and then hugged her himself. When he would have lingered, Sully pulled him off by the back of his collar.

  “No taking advantage of the situation,” Sully said to Robbie. “We agreed.”

  “Sorry, mate, it’s in my nature,” Robbie said in his charming British accent.

  “Change your nature,” Sully said. It sounded more like a threat than a suggestion.

  Lindsey glanced between them and frowned. “What do you mean, you agreed?”

  “We were both having lunch over at the Blue Anchor,” Sully began.

  “Not together,” Robbie added.

  Su
lly rolled his eyes and continued, “When Terry Lucas said she heard a man was shot while trying to rob the library, we agreed to come over together but not promote our own agendas, didn’t we?”

  “Not my idea,” Robbie said, pouting. “I say when a bloke sees an opportunity, he should exploit it.”

  “Nice,” Sully said in a tone that made it clear that it wasn’t.

  “Shot?” Lindsey asked. She glanced at Emma, who shook her head as if she was not at all surprised that the story had been warped from traveling on too many tongues.

  “That’s a ridiculous rumor. Who would rob the library?” Ms. Cole asked with an indignant sniff.

  Lindsey had to give her that. She didn’t know anyone who would take on Ms. Cole over her cash drawer, not willingly.

  The two officers had finished questioning the other staff, and Lindsey looked at Emma. “Did you have any more questions?”

  “Not right now,” she said. “But I’ll be in touch if I do. The room has been cordoned off, and it goes without saying that no one should go back there until we take the crime scene tape down.”

  “Got it,” Lindsey said.

  “Crime scene tape? Well, blimey, Lindsey, if you weren’t robbed, what happened?” Robbie asked.

  Lindsey looked at Emma, who gave her a small nod. Obviously, now that the preliminary investigation was done, the facts could be revealed.

  “A man was found dead in one of the back rooms,” Lindsey said. “We don’t know who he is yet, but it does appear that he was murdered.”

  Sully’s gaze narrowed on her face. Nothing much got by Sully, and he asked, “You found the body, didn’t you?”

  A shudder rippled from the top of Lindsey’s head all the way down to her feet. For as long as she lived, she was never going to forget the chilling moment she realized the man was dead.

  “Oh, love, you poor thing,” Robbie said. He opened his arms wide as if to scoop Lindsey close and comfort her. Sully blocked him, intercepting his move and leaving Robbie hugging him instead.