Hemlock
Page 29
Ruby frowned. “But didn’t you say that her house was more than a mile away? Surely she didn’t expect to drag a loaded wheelie all that distance, even if the wheel hadn’t been broken.”
“That lady is eminently resourceful,” I said. “She drove her snowmobile.”
Ruby looked skeptical. “And nobody heard it? Those things are loud.”
“She cut the engine a hundred yards from the house and walked the rest of the way. I think she might have gotten away with her plan if the sliding bookcase hadn’t slipped off its rollers. That’s what woke Jenna. Dorothea, too.”
There was a loud mrrrrow and Khat, our fawn-colored Siamese shop kitty, stalked through the door to the tea room and jumped onto the sales counter. “Hello, sweetie,” I said, stroking his lovely seal-point ears. “Miss me?”
Khat flicked his dark tail dismissively. Like most Siamese, he disdains any show of affection unless he thinks it will get him an extra helping of kitty food. I laughed. “As long as somebody fed you, you probably didn’t even know I was gone,” I told him.
“So is what Claudia did a crime?” Ruby asked. “Is she going to get into trouble with the law for hiding that book?”
“The sheriff is threatening to charge her with obstruction,” I said. “But I doubt he’ll go to the trouble. The Herbal is back where it belongs, undamaged, and he has his hands full with Jed Conway and Socrates.com. He’ll give Claudia a stern lecture, clear the theft, and that will be the end of that. She has also promised Dorothea that she won’t come back—not at night, anyway.”
“Jed has been arrested?”
I opened the little cupboard behind the counter and took out the broom. “Yep. Chief Curtis has charged him with offering two stolen prints of Redouté’s Lilies on Socrates.com, and there will be additional charges when they figure out what’s what. Jenna is going through all the listings on the website in an effort to match them with items that are missing from the library. Jed had better start looking for a lawyer.”
“And the foundation’s board?”
“Good news.” I smiled. “They’ve commended Dorothea for getting the book back. And agreed to her proposal for climate control, an alarm system, and an additional person to help with the cataloging. I think they’re beginning to take their work seriously at last.”
Ruby sighed. “And the story of the ghost of Hemlock House—it was Claudia Roth all along?” She sounded disappointed.
I hesitated. “I didn’t say that,” I said slowly. I shivered, thinking of the intense cold and the powerful dark energy I had felt when I stepped out into the hallway. “There’s something there. A ghost, a spirit, a force—whatever it is, it’s been there for years. I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. And I’d just as soon not know what it is.”
The bell over the shop door chimed gently. I looked up, expecting to see the door open and the first customer of the day step inside. But there was no one there—at least, no one that I could see.
Ruby smiled. “That’s Annie,” she said. “She always likes to have the last word, you know.”
About Susan Wittig Albert
Growing up on a farm on the Illinois prairie, Susan learned that books could take her anywhere, and reading and writing became passions that have accompanied her throughout her life. She earned an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana and a PhD in medieval studies from the University of California at Berkeley. After fifteen years of faculty and administrative appointments at the University of Texas, Tulane University, and Texas State University, she left her academic career to write full time.
Now, there are over four million copies of Susan’s books in print. Her best-selling mystery fiction includes the Darling Dahlias Depression-era mysteries, the China Bayles Herbal Mysteries, the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, and (under the pseudonym of Robin Paige) a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries with her husband, Bill Albert.
Susan’s historical fiction includes The General’s Women, a novel about the World War II romantic triangle of Dwight Eisenhower, his wife Mamie, and his driver and secretary Kay Summersby; Loving Eleanor, a fictional account of the friendship of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt; and A Wilder Rose, the story of Rose Wilder Lane and the writing of the Little House books. She is also the author of two memoirs: An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days and Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place. Other nonfiction titles include What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest (winner of the 2009 Willa Award for Creative Nonfiction); Writing from Life: Telling the Soul’s Story; and Work of Her Own: A Woman’s Guide to Success off the Career Track.
Susan is an active participant in the literary community. She is the founder of the Story Circle Network, a nonprofit organization for women writers, and a member of Sisters in Crime, Women Writing the West, Mystery Writers of America, and the Texas Institute of Letters. She and her husband Bill live on thirty-one acres in the Texas Hill Country, where she gardens, tends chickens and geese, and indulges her passions for needlework and (of course) reading.
Resources
Background material for this book, including recipes, suggestions for further reading, and some notes on Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal are available on Susan’s website: https://susanalbert.com/hemlock-book-28/
Books by Susan Wittig Albert
Series Mysteries
The Crystal Cave Novella Trilogy
The Pecan Springs Enterprise Novella Trilogy
The Darling Dahlias Mysteries
The China Bayles Mysteries
The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter
The Robin Paige Victorian-Edwardian Mysteries (with Bill Albert, writing as Robin Paige)
Historical Fiction
Loving Eleanor
A Wilder Rose
The General’s Women
Memoir
An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days
Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place
Nonfiction
Writing from Life: Telling the Soul’s Story
Work of Her Own
Edited Works
What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest