Better Late Than Never

by Jenn McKinlay

  The occasional slam of a locker accompanied by running feet and random shouts was the only noise that echoed off of the cement walls.

  Lindsey had called ahead to make sure it was a good time to meet with the librarian, Hannah Carson. The double doors that led into the library were propped open and she and Paula walked in, pausing to take in the colorful room.

  Short stacks of books lined the perimeter, angled so that anyone in between the shelves could be seen from the front. Tables and chairs filled the space in between while student artwork and projects were on display all around the large room.

  Lindsey had toured the library before and remembered how much she liked the space for its natural light and bright colors. The school library where she had grown up had been dark and quiet with a pencils-only policy, and the librarian had been a fleshy lipped, gray-haired old man with a mean squint who minced when he walked like he was trying to keep a stick firmly lodged up his butt.

  Dressed in a literary T-shirt featuring the cover art from The Great Gatsby and a pair of jeans with black Converse high tops, Hannah Carson greeted them looking nothing like the crotchety old man of Lindsey’s adolescent nightmares. In fact, with her two-tone shoulder-length hair dyed blond on the top and dark brown beneath, she looked like she’d be more at home in the school’s art department or possibly auto shop.

  “Lindsey, over here!”

  Hannah waved them over to the large table in the corner of the room where she stood. There was a pack of students gathered around the table, all talking at once. Lindsey had no idea how anyone could hear themselves think much less catch what anyone else was saying.

  Hannah turned to the teacher beside her and said something, and then met Lindsey and Paula when they were halfway across the room.

  “Welcome to the chaos,” Hannah said. She shook Lindsey’s hand and then extended her hand to Paula. “You must be Ms. Turner, the library’s new hire.”

  “Please call me Paula,” she said as she shook Hannah’s hand.

  “Cool. Call me Hannah.”

  Just then a raucous cry erupted from the table. Lindsey saw one of the students hold up what looked like a mechanical octopus with a big blue glowing head. The student was pumping his fist and roaring. Hannah looked at the group with an indulgent smile.

  “That’s our robotics team. They’re practicing for the state tournament. They’re very committed to winning.”

  Another burst of shouts and cheers came from the table.

  “We might be better able to hear one another in my office,” Hannah shouted.

  She gestured for them to follow her and they headed around the circulation desk into a glassed-in room, which housed several desks and a worktable.

  Hannah sat down at the table and Lindsey and Paula did the same.

  “Can I get you anything? Water or coffee?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” Lindsey and Paula both declined.

  Another cheer sounded from outside.

  “I’ve got to tell you, my school library was never this cool,” Paula said.

  Hannah smiled. “We’re evolving and turning into more of a maker space. We do robotics, gaming, cooking, filmmaking, song recording, you name it. If the students can think it, I tell them we can do it here.”

  “We’ve been toying with the idea of converting one of our meeting rooms into a maker space,” Lindsey said. “Of course, I have to get the library board to approve it.”

  “They will,” Hannah said. “It’s one of the many ways libraries are changing. Your library would be perfect. You’re open more hours than I am and I’m betting many of the students would love to have access on the weekends. Even better, I bet you’d bring in a lot of the parents.”

  “So, an all-ages space, then?” Paula asked.

  “I get a lot of adults asking me if they can come in here and use the equipment. The interest is there.” She gestured out toward the robotics club. “The arms on that thing came from our 3D printer, and we’ve only begun to utilize its potential.”

  “You have a 3D printer?” Paula asked.

  “Grant funded,” Hannah said.

  “I want, I want, I want,” Paula wailed. She winked so Lindsey knew she was kidding, but there was an underlying lust for the printer in her eye that Lindsey completely understood. She wanted one, too.

  “What software are you using?”

  “AutoMaker.”

  “Dual nozzle?”

  “Of course. That way you can use two filament spools for more color options.”

  “Wicked,” Paula said.

  “Wow, it’s kind of like you’re speaking English, but you’re not,” Lindsey said.

  “Sorry,” Hannah said. “I geeked on you.”

  “Me, too, boss,” Paula said. “We really have to get one of those.”

  Hannah laughed. “Well, you’re welcome to come here and use it anytime you want.”

  “Yes!” Paula pumped her fist.

  Lindsey glanced between the two women. There was obviously a great gadget lovefest happening between them. Which was excellent because now she could excuse herself to take a call while Paula ironed out the details of issuing the cards to the freshmen with Hannah.

  “So, how do we want to get these freshmen signed up for library cards?” Hannah asked. “Brilliant to get it done before summer, by the way.”

  “Paula, do you mind telling her our different ideas?” Lindsey asked. She pulled her phone out of her purse and stared at it as if she’d just gotten a message. “So sorry; I need to take this.” She rose from her seat and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure, take your time. I got this,” Paula said. She pulled a notebook out of her purse, where she had jotted down the basic outline of their plan. “So, we were thinking . . .”

  Lindsey ducked out of the office and into the hallway. She shoved her phone into her pocket and hurried to the right. Most of the classroom doors were shut and locked, but in the second one she saw a teacher in his room. He was sitting at his desk with a red pen in hand and he looked weary.

  Lindsey had seen that look on both of her parents, who were college professors, during exam time. She often thought that teachers deserved hazard pay, for educating their students even when the students didn’t care to be educated. It took a special person to devote their life to the learning and advancement of others. From what she had heard, Candice Whitley was that sort of special person.

  Lindsey didn’t see anything to indicate which room was Judy Elrich’s, so she turned around and went back the way she came. She took her phone out of her pocket and put it to her ear in case Paula or Hannah saw her and thought she was lost or daft or whatever. She felt a little bit bad for deceiving them but her quest for information made her shake it off.

  She went by two classrooms and was about to turn around when she saw Judy standing by the window of her classroom. She wore her light brown hair in a knot at the back of her head. She was dressed in a denim skirt and a loose-fitting jersey top. Her shoes were sensible. Her entire demeanor seemed to be one of a person who didn’t want to be noticed.

  Why had Lindsey never noticed that about her before? When she saw Judy in the library, she was still quiet in dress and manner, but here it seemed more pronounced. It struck Lindsey that Judy had the posture of a person who had been beaten down by life and had surrendered.

  Lindsey pushed the thought aside. Because she knew of Judy’s friendship with Candice, she was reading too much into the situation when the woman was probably just thinking about a student who wasn’t doing as well as she’d expected, or about a parent who was too busy telling her how to do her job to properly parent their own kid. Lindsey knew the type.

  Or maybe it was a personal issue. Daniels had said she’d moved home to take care of her mother. Maybe her mother had taken a turn for the worse and she was trying to decide w
hat to do. Then again, possibly it was something deeper and darker than that. Perhaps Judy had heard about the returned library book and she was thinking about her friend and why she had killed her.

  Lindsey blinked. That had escalated quickly. Now to see if any of it was true.

  Lindsey knocked on the doorframe and Judy turned around with a prepared look, as if she was used to being interrupted. When she saw Lindsey she looked surprised and then frowned.

  “Hi, Judy. It’s Lindsey from the library,” she said. “I know I’m out of context here.”

  Judy blinked as if trying to place her and then she smiled. “Hi, Lindsey, you’re right. Sorry I didn’t recognize you away from the books.”

  “I bet you get that from your students when they see you at the grocery store,” Lindsey said.

  Judy nodded. “I think it is a bit of a shock for them to realize that I do eat food. I’m sure a few of them think I snack on rats and snakes and whatever else falls into my cauldron.”

  Lindsey smiled. She liked the self-deprecating teacher humor. She did get a similar response from the younger kids she ran into outside of the library, although not the cauldron part of it, thank goodness. Still, the little ones did seem to think the “Library Lady” actually lived in the library.

  “Are you that tough of a teacher?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Judy said. “But I do keep my expectations high. I think students will generally rise to the challenge if you give them enough support.”

  “People, too,” Lindsey said, thinking of some of the people in her life who had surprised her.

  “Were you looking for me?” Judy asked. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, I mean, I just happened by and saw you and thought I’d say hello,” Lindsey said. “I’m actually meeting with Hannah Carson about a joint project.”

  Judy nodded as if that made sense. An awkward silence fell between them and Lindsey knew she only had a few minutes to broach the subject without things being weird. Okay, they were already weird, but she could live with that.

  “It’s been an interesting week at the library,” she said.

  She moved to stand beside Judy at the window, which looked out over the school’s track and football field, the same football field where Candice’s body had been found under the bleachers so many years ago.

  Newly resolved, Lindsey drew a deep breath and said, “We had a fine amnesty day. It was fascinating the amount of overdue materials that came back.”

  “I’ll bet,” Judy said. “I hope I don’t have any overdue materials. I know my mother enjoys her audio books, but I think I’ve gotten them all back.”

  Lindsey nodded. “You’d be getting love letters from Ms. Cole if you didn’t. One of the books that was returned was checked out over twenty years ago.”

  “Really?” Judy asked. “Twenty years? What sort of shape was it in?”

  “Almost perfect condition,” Lindsey said. She turned and studied Judy with a direct stare. “I’m going to tell you this so that you hear it from me and not through the town gossip. The book was checked out by Candice Whitley on the day she died.”

  Judy gasped. She staggered back and her face went a deathly shade of white. Lindsey figured it was safe to assume that the stories had not reached Judy as yet.

  “What?” she asked. “That can’t be. How could you possibly know that?”

  “One of the librarians is very thorough with her record keeping,” Lindsey said. “When the book came back, we looked it up. It was a disturbing discovery.”

  Judy glanced out the window at the football field then moved back to her desk as if she needed to get away from the sight of the place where her friend had died.

  “Do you know who returned it?” Judy asked. Her voice was soft, breathless with a tremor of fear in it. Lindsey felt bad for causing her distress, but, at the same time, if it was the murderer who had returned the book then Judy had better steel herself for the possibility that even worse things could be happening.

  “No,” Lindsey said. “We were mobbed all day.”

  Judy nodded. She glanced back toward the window.

  “Judy, I know that Candice was your friend,” Lindsey said. “And I am so sorry for your loss, but do you know anyone who wanted to harm her?”

  “No,” Judy said. There was no hesitation in her answer. “Don’t you think if I’d known that someone wanted to kill her, I would have told the police all those years ago?”

  Lindsey grimaced. She could understand Judy’s anger.

  “I was thinking it might have come to you later,” she said. It sounded lame even to her.

  “No, there’s no one,” she said. “Candice was an inherently good person. She loved her students, her community, her family, and everyone felt the same way about her in return. She was the sort of person who gave three hundred percent of herself and she managed to make others do the same.”

  Lindsey said nothing. She could see Judy was struggling with having the painful past dragged into her present.

  “Candice always brought out the best in everyone,” she said. “Even in me. She was my best friend. After she was killed, I just couldn’t . . . I couldn’t live here anymore. It broke my heart to walk the same streets, eat at the same places. The memory of her was everywhere and it hurt like a perpetual stab in my chest. I had to go.”

  Lindsey thought about what her life would be like if Beth was ripped out of it so violently. She couldn’t imagine facing the day without Beth in her silly story time costumes, her exuberance for children and children’s books gone from the library. Yeah, she imagined she’d have to quit, as it would be too painful to stay.

  She’d probably return to an academic job like the one she’d had before she came to Briar Creek. The thought of Briar Creek without Beth was that horrible. She couldn’t imagine how Beth’s boyfriend, Aidan, would take it. He was completely besotted with her. Was that how Benji Gunderson took Candice’s death?

  “How was Benji Gunderson after she died?” she asked.

  “He was a wreck,” Judy said. Her eyes grew distant as if she were reexamining her memories to see if there was something she had missed. “He didn’t kill her if that’s what you’re thinking. I know he was a suspect, mostly because they didn’t have any others, but he was destroyed by her death. She was his everything.”

  Lindsey felt her heart clutch in her chest. Is that how she would feel if anything ever happened to Sully? She couldn’t process it. The thought of never seeing him again left her breathless in the most painful way, as if her insides were collapsing in on themselves, trying to curl up into a protective ball to withstand the hurt. Was that what Benji had felt? She couldn’t even imagine.

  She shook her head. She couldn’t get sidetracked by unsubstantiated accounts of how people felt. Despite his alibi, Benji could have been involved in her murder. Robbie, for all of his wild speculation, could be right. It could be that Benji had cheated on her and his lover had strangled her to get him all to herself. Yes, it was a dramatic version—no surprise there given that it came from Robbie—but stranger situations had happened.

  “What about her student Matthew Mercer?” Lindsey asked.

  Judy shot her a startled glance. “What do you mean?”

  “I heard that he was quite attached to her,” she said. “Was that true?”

  “Why do you care?” she asked. “Candice was nothing to you. You didn’t even live here back then.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Lindsey said.

  “So, why dig it all up now?” Judy asked. “What’s the point? It won’t bring Candice back.”

  Her voice trembled and a tear spilled out of the corner of her eye. Lindsey felt terrible for poking at her friend’s death and bringing her grief up to the surface.

  “No, it won’t, but if it was her murderer who returned the book . . .�
�

  “It wasn’t,” Judy said. She snatched a tissue out of the holder on her desk and dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It’s been twenty years,” Judy said. “That book has probably been passed around from house to house with no one knowing it was checked out to Candice, and then your amnesty day came along and someone just happened to return it.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am,” Judy said.

  “Do you know that for certain or do you really just want to believe it?” Lindsey asked.

  Judy opened her mouth, looking like she’d argue, but then she didn’t.

  “Matthew was just a boy,” she said. “He was smart, gifted, a talented writer. Both Candice and I saw that. I refuse to believe that he would have hurt her.”

  “Then who would have?” Lindsey asked.

  “I don’t know,” Judy said. Her voice broke and she lowered her head. “I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I have spent trying to figure out who might have wanted to do such a horrible thing to her, but I just don’t know.”

  The cloak of defeat draped around her like a shroud and Lindsey wished she knew Judy better. She wished she had the sort of familiarity that would allow her to give Judy a bolstering hug, but Lindsey was a little reserved by nature and Judy didn’t give off a vibe that said she welcomed hugs. Lindsey settled for patting Judy’s arm.

  “I just hate to think that it was either Benji or Matthew,” Judy said. “Candice was in love with Benji and she was so proud of Matthew. He was her prize student. But . . . maybe I’ve been wrong all these years.”

  She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Now Lindsey really felt awful.

  “I am so sorry,” she said. “It was never my intention to upset you.”

  Judy sucked in a breath and lifted her head. She struggled to get it together and rubbed her face with her hands as if she could just wipe it all away.