“But he wasn’t in Briar Creek at the time,” Lindsey said. “It would have been impossible.”
“Maybe he wasn’t working alone,” Karen said. “Maybe he paid someone to kill her for him.”
The group was silent. Lindsey watched Emma study everyone’s face. She wondered what the police chief was thinking. Did she suspect the Larsens had something to do with Candice’s murder or was she here to rule them out?
“Candice taught my cousin’s kid Joey Prentice to read,” Michelle, the secretary, said. “She was devoted to her students. Her death was a crushing blow to them.”
“It was to us all,” James agreed. His voice sounded gruff and Lindsey noted that he looked very uncomfortable.
Karen turned back to Emma. “I hope you have new information, something that will help catch her killer so that he can never do that to anyone ever again.”
“Possibly, but I need to know as much as I can about her time here,” Emma said. She gestured to the principal’s office. “If you have a moment, James?”
“Now?” He glanced at her and then to the office, as if he was surprised she wanted to speak to him in private. “Well, okay.” He kissed his wife’s cheek. “I’ll see you at home, dear.”
“Take your time,” she said. “You want to help in any way you can.”
James and Emma disappeared into his office and shut the door behind them.
“I’m sorry to hear about your house,” Lindsey said. “It seems there have been several robberies in town lately.”
“I wish I could take comfort in the fact that others have suffered like us, but it just makes me even more anxious,” Karen said. “I read a statistic online the other day that once a person is robbed they are likely to get robbed again as soon as they replace their things.”
“Do you have a lot to replace?” Lindsey asked.
“No, actually, we aren’t even certain of what they took, only that they smashed the window on the back door to get in,” Karen said. “The police suspect they were interrupted before they could actually take anything.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t home when it happened,” Lindsey said. “That could have been terrible.”
Karen nodded. She leaned against the counter. “James and I were both here. I’m a reading tutor here at the high school. I have been for years. The pay is lousy, but the boss is pretty cute.”
She smiled in the direction of the office and Lindsey could see the affection in her eyes for her husband. She wondered if Karen had heard the gossip about James and Candice having an affair and if it had bothered her.
Lindsey knew that asking that question would raise her buttinsky tendency up to the level of out-and-out rudesby, but she had to know. Maybe she could make an informational end run.
“So, did you work with Candice, then?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, she was a lovely girl,” Karen said. “We had common ground in that she was an English teacher and I was trying to increase the level of literacy, so we worked together quite closely. But personally, I’m afraid I didn’t know her very well. It has always been difficult for me to establish close friendships with the rest of the staff, being the boss’s wife and all.”
She looked a bit chagrined by this but in a cheerful way so if she had heard the rumors, they didn’t seem to bother her. Lindsey didn’t envy her the rock and a hard place her job put her in. She couldn’t imagine having a husband underfoot while she was trying to run the library. Abruptly, an image of Sully working in the library flitted through her mind and she had to admit he looked good there. She vigorously shook her head. There was no need to be going there.
“Are you all right?” Karen asked her. She was giving Lindsey a curious look.
“Yes, sorry, I thought I felt something buzz by my ear,” she said. “I’d better get back to the library. I expect Hannah will wonder where I’ve gone.”
“Nice to see you, Lindsey,” Karen said.
“You, too.”
Lindsey left the office feeling torn. On the one hand she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to the principal like she’d hoped, but on the other hand she did get Matthew’s poem to Emma.
She supposed it was just as well. What could she have possibly said to James Larsen that didn’t sound like an accusation? And after meeting his wife, she really didn’t want to accuse him of murder. The man had an alibi, after all. What could she really gain from asking him about Candice Whitley?
She was halfway down the hallway when it occurred to her that Emma was probably asking Principal Larsen some pretty personal questions. Lindsey wondered what James would answer, then she wondered if Emma would tell her what he said.
She almost laughed out loud at the thought of Emma’s face if she demanded to know what she and Larsen talked about, except it wasn’t funny. Emma would likely choke her out and lock her up.
Despite the Larsens’ obvious affection for each other and their appeal as a couple, James Larsen was hiding something. At the very least, he was ill at ease about something. Lindsey had wrangled with enough patrons on the status of their lost, stolen and missing library books to know when a person wasn’t being completely forthcoming about something. She’d seen Larsen’s face. He was definitely hiding something. But what?
When Lindsey arrived back at the school library, she found Paula and Hannah right where she left them in the small workroom. Paula had her shirtsleeve up and Hannah was examining her tattoo of flying books.
“That’s beautiful,” Hannah said as she traced the edge of a book with her finger. “It’s like a painting.”
Paula smiled at Hannah and they looked mutually charmed by each other. Lindsey wondered if she needed to do the requisite clearing-of-her-throat thing before this got awkward. Or would that make it more awkward?
She decided just to go for it and took two quick steps back and then strode into the room, pretending to just be arriving.
“Hey, there, you two,” she said. “Don’t tell me I missed the chai.”
They both started at her abrupt arrival, but Lindsey plopped down into her seat and busied herself with the mug in front of her.
“Not at all,” Hannah said. “In fact, yours should be cool enough to drink now.”
“Excellent. Thanks so much,” Lindsey said. She took a sip. It was delicious; perfect for a rainy day. “Oh, this is really good. I’m going to need the recipe so I can make it for my crafternoon group.”
“Crafternoon?” Hannah asked. “What’s that?”
“A Thursday book club where we eat, discuss a book and do a craft,” Lindsey said.
She glanced at the two women. Hannah was pretty isolated at the high school and Paula was new to town. It occurred to her that they both might be looking to expand their social circle.
“You know, you two should join us. It’s a lot of fun and you’re both book people. You’d fit right in,” she said.
“I’m not very crafty,” Hannah said. “In fact, unless it involves a soldering iron, I pretty much hate it.”
Paula laughed. “Really? I love crafts. Lately I’ve been into beading.”
“Well, maybe we can come up with a project that can incorporate beads and soldering,” Lindsey said.
“I’d like that,” Hannah said.
“Me, too,” Paula agreed.
“Cool,” Lindsey said. “I’ll email the details to you.”
While Lindsey finished her tea, Paula told her that Hannah was now up to speed on how to sign up the freshmen students using their online system. Hannah then discussed the possibility of making the high school a satellite library to the public library. Lindsey thought the idea had merit and promised to mention it to the library board at their next meeting.
“Hannah, what sort of archiving do you have here?” she asked.
“Meaning old books and such?”
“I was thinking more
about old photographs, awards, newspaper clippings,” Lindsey said. “From about twenty years ago.”
Hannah nodded. She popped up from her seat and said, “Follow me.”
Lindsey tried to contain her excitement. Hannah had the look of a librarian starting out on an information quest. This was always Lindsey’s favorite part of the job: when someone asked for information that was hard to find and the librarian and patron were now engaged in a quest for the answer. Truly, there was no other high quite like it.
Hannah led them through the library to a closet door at the back of the room. It was painted bright blue and had a STAFF ONLY sign on it. Hannah typed a pass code number on the keypad next to the door and they heard the door unlock.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open. She reached up and pulled on a string that switched on the overhead light. The room was full of shelves of old overhead projectors, slide carousels, whiteboards, chalkboards and 8mm movie projectors.
“Wow,” Paula said. “This is like the room where the last century in educational technology came to die.”
Hannah covered her face with her hands. “Now you know my secret. I’m a hoarder.”
Lindsey glanced around the room. It was neat and tidy with no dust and everything was clearly labeled.
“You’re a saver not a hoarder,” she said. “Trust me. I know the difference.”
“Thank you. Saver sounds so much better. I keep thinking I should throw some of this out,” Hannah said. “But then I think the kids can use the equipment for robot parts or for their inventions. You know reuse, recycle, renew.”
Paula looked at the old filmstrip projector as if it were a relic in a museum. “They really made these things to last back then.”
“Exactly,” Hannah said. “This stuff is super sturdy for making battle bots.”
“Awesome,” Paula said.
“But what you’re looking for is over here,” Hannah said to Lindsey. She led the way to a large shelving unit that was filled with cardboard boxes. These were file boxes that came with lids and were clearly labeled.
“These are the high school archives. They go all the way back to the fifties. One of my many projects has been to digitize all of the files and make them accessible to former students and teachers. I’ve written a grant to buy a high-quality scanner but I haven’t heard back yet.”
Lindsey looked at the boxes. “That’s an ambitious project,” she said. “Have you thought about having the historical society do it for you?”
“I did,” Hannah said. “I even had Milton Duffy come out here and take a look. He said his volunteers would love to do it for free but they’d have to take the boxes back to the historical society. Principal Larsen said no.”
Lindsey frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I, but he was quite adamant that none of the school’s archives were to leave school premises,” Hannah said. “Which is why I wrote the grant for the scanner. Milton thought he might be able to get his volunteers to work here. So now we’re in the eternal holding pattern that is requisitions.”
“You know if we did merge libraries you would have access to our equipment and we have a scanner,” Lindsey said. “And our premises would be your premises and vice versa.”
“I’m really liking this idea,” Hannah said. She gestured to the boxes. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”
“A picture of a person holding a copy of The Catcher in the Rye from October second, nineteen ninety-six,” Paula said.
Lindsey ignored her. “May I?”
Hannah gestured for her to go for it. Lindsey stepped forward and started reading the labels. She worked her way back a few decades until she found the section of boxes labeled for the early- to mid-nineties. There were four of them. She grabbed the first one by the openings that acted as handles and pulled it off the shelf.
“Can we help?” Paula asked.
“Please,” Lindsey said. “These four boxes cover the time period I’m interested in.”
Hannah grabbed one and Paula grabbed the remaining two. Lindsey hugged her box to her side with one arm and pulled the door open. Hannah and Paula led the way out of the room. They all blinked against the brighter light of the library. Hannah put her box on the first table outside the storage room, and Lindsey and Paula did the same.
Lindsey lifted the lid off and glanced at the contents. More files and more labels all done in chronological order. Whoever had been the librarian back in the day had clearly had a rage for order.
She pulled out the first file and scanned the contents. It was all about a Future Cities project. She moved on to the next one.
“What are we looking for?” Hannah asked as she opened her box.
“Any file that mentions Candice Whitley or Matthew Mercer,” Lindsey said. “She was a teacher and he was her student.”
“I know that name,” Hannah said. “She was the teacher who was murdered twenty years ago.”
Lindsey looked at Paula. “You want to tell her what you found on amnesty day?”
Paula did and Hannah’s eyes went wide. “I just got chills. Do you really think it was the murderer who returned the book?”
“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “It could be a random happenstance or a weird coincidence.”
“But you don’t believe in coincidences, do you?” Hannah asked.
“No,” Lindsey said.
They all turned their attention back to the boxes. It took a lot of digging but Hannah was the one who found the first stash of pictures from one of the plays Candice and Judy had put on as the drama club coaches.
Lindsey had seen several of these photos in the yearbooks but one in the group Hannah found had a great closeup of Benji Gunderson. She put it aside. Paula found the next great picture. It was field day at the school and there was a picture of Matthew Mercer out in the sun, talking to Candice. Their conversation appeared to be intense and Lindsey noted the date on the picture. It was taken the day before Candice was murdered. She put that one aside, too.
By the time they finished looking at the contents, Lindsey had five pictures that showed close-ups of Benji and Matthew. She knew it was a long shot, but her plan was to ask her staff if any of them had seen anyone who resembled either of these men on amnesty day.
“Hannah, can I make some copies of these pictures?”
“I don’t see why not,” Hannah said. “They aren’t copyrighted and you’re not taking the originals off the premises. I have a copier in my office. I’ll go make them for you.”
“Thanks,” Lindsey said. “Oh, and, Hannah, you might not want to mention to anyone that you made copies of photos for me.”
“What photos?” Hannah asked with a wink.
When Paula and Lindsey left the high school, Lindsey gave the office a side eye to see if Emma was still with James. His door was open and the room appeared vacant. Lindsey didn’t know what to make of that and she didn’t think calling Emma to discuss new books was going to work as well on her as it had on Daniels. Darn it.
They were halfway back to the library when Lindsey noticed that Paula kept glancing at her as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
“Spill it,” Lindsey said.
“What?” Paula tossed her purple braid over her shoulder and looked toward the bay.
“Whatever is bothering you,” Lindsey said. “Go ahead and ask me.”
“Nothing is bothering me.”
“Okay.”
“Really, I’m fine.”
“All right.”
They walked in silence for a minute. And then Paula’s words came out of her like a geyser that couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“What do you know about Hannah? How well do you know her? Is there anything I should know before I ask her out? Oh my God, did I just say that out loud?”<
br />
“Yes, you did,” Lindsey said. She couldn’t help but grin. “I don’t know much about Hannah except that she’s always pleasant, she’s very well-read, she does amazing things with her students, like robots, and I think she likes you, too.”
“How can you tell?” Paula asked.
“There was definitely a vibe.”
“Oh, good, I was worried it was just me.”
They continued walking but Paula seemed less stressed. In fact, Lindsey was pretty sure she detected a spring in her clerk’s step.
“Did you mean it, then?” Paula asked. “You’re inviting us to join your crafternoon group?”
“Absolutely,” Lindsey said. “It was never meant to be a closed group, but it sort of became that way. I suspect things are going to be changing, what with Mary expecting her first child, so I think it’s time we got some new blood. I know how much you love reading and I’ve seen your beadwork. You’re a perfect fit.”
“Okay, then, what are we reading?”
“The Catcher in the Rye, ironically,” Lindsey said. “When it caused such a stir upon its return Violet admitted that she’d never read it, so we decided to give it a go. This is my second go-round on it. I’m hoping I enjoy it more this time.”
“You didn’t love it?”
“No, but I didn’t hate it either,” Lindsey said. “I suppose I just didn’t find Holden very relatable.”
“I love that book,” Paula said. “It’s in my top twenty books of all time.”
“I’m betting you own a copy,” Lindsey said.
“Naturally,” Paula said. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Excellent,” Lindsey said. “I’ll let the group know you’ll be joining us and you can lead the discussion.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Paula said. Her spring vanished and now she looked alarmed.
“Look at it this way: it’s your opportunity to get me to love it,” Lindsey said.
“All right, challenge accepted.”
Lindsey sat in her office with the pictures spread out on her desk. It was the longest of long shots given that the pictures were twenty years old, but she had asked each of her staff if they remembered anyone who resembled these two men on amnesty day.
Better Late Than Never Page 18
