The Broken Spine

by Dorothy St. James

  “If she were the killing type, half our town would have met an early demise by now,” Fisher rightfully pointed out.

  “So that leaves me?” I asked.

  “That leaves you,” Ellerbe agreed. “Unless . . . ?”

  “Unless someone else was in the library?” I finished for him.

  “Now that’s a novel idea.” He tapped his temple. “Can you think of anyone?”

  My heart beat just a bit faster. Did they know? Did they know about my work in the basement? Did they know about Flossie, Tori, and Charlie? No, if they did, they wouldn’t play coy about it. They wouldn’t be trying to trick me.

  “You mean someone might have broken into the library that morning?” I asked. “It’s something I’ll have to think about.”

  Ellerbe rapped his knuckle on the desk’s surface. “You do that.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Today’s the day,” Anne sang as she arrived early on Thursday morning. Her usual dour morning mood was nowhere to be found, which surprised me. The young techie was never chipper in the morning.

  She looked younger than ever with her wide grin and purple-streaked hair styled in pigtails. She bounced happily on the balls of her feet. “Aren’t you breathless with excitement?” she asked me.

  “Now that you mentioned it, it does seem like I’m having trouble breathing,” I said dryly.

  “I knew you’d love it.” She hugged me before rushing past the circulation desk. “Today’s the day,” she continued to sing over and over as she headed through the library to her desk in the computer mainframe room.

  Today was the library’s grand reopening. A ceremony was scheduled for ten o’clock that morning. Local reporter Betty Crawley had already stationed herself on the front steps. I wondered if Mrs. Farnsworth would let Betty come inside to cover the event despite having banned her from our hallowed halls.

  A banner hung in the library’s foyer that proclaimed, “Town of Cypress Celebrates the Future.”

  There was going to be a ribbon cutting. The mayor was scheduled to give a speech. And then Anne would take over to give the reporters and residents a tour of the new facilities. (The tour was something Duggar would have done if he’d still been alive. And the fact that Anne was now going to get her time in the spotlight was evidence of motive—at least in my mind—for killing him.)

  During this period of show-and-tell, I was scheduled to work the circulation desk and direct patrons with questions to either Mrs. Farnsworth or Anne. Mrs. Farnsworth had warned that if I wanted to keep my job, I wasn’t to make any kind of personal commentary about the new library.

  At nine forty-five, Mrs. Farnsworth unlocked the front doors. She was dressed in her best dark red dress with lace trim at the neckline. Her hair was styled a little differently. Large looping curls sat like iron pipes on the top of her head. It was a style that was popular locally in the late 1980s. The taller the hair, the better.

  Some of the older ladies still went to the salon and paid top dollar to have their hair “done up.” Apparently, Mrs. Farnsworth had shelled out the money to look her best today.

  “You look nice,” I told her as she passed by me.

  “Nice is for sissies,” Mrs. Farnsworth scolded without even glancing in my direction.

  “Wow, did I hear Mrs. Farnsworth dish out some snark just now?” asked Delanie Messervey. Delanie was one of Cypress’s top social leaders and past president of the Friends of the Library Association. She was the first patron to pass through the doors that morning. Her vintage pink dress with tiny white polka dots flared at the waist. She wore matching pink pumps and looked like a housewife that had escaped from an advertisement in a 1950s magazine. The style was catching fire with Cypress’s society women. I expected to see more vintage dresses like hers before the morning was over.

  I glanced down at my outfit—a light blue sweater set and sensible gray dress trousers—and wondered how I’d look in a dress like Delanie’s. Not for today. But perhaps for a date night. On a date. With a man. A man whom I’d yet to meet.

  I’d picked out my sweater set, trousers, and comfortable flats so I wouldn’t be encumbered by my clothing. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen today, and I wanted to be prepared for anything.

  Delanie glanced back at the banner hanging in the foyer and clicked her tongue. “What Duggar did to this place doesn’t feel like progress. I should have worn black. I feel like I’m attending a funeral instead of a celebration.”

  Although she seemed to be grumbling to herself, I waved her over to the desk. I loved Delanie. If the library needed something (like new books), she’d always found a way to raise the funds. She’d fought just as hard as the rest of us to save the library’s printed books. Not even her promise of increased fundraising efforts had changed Duggar’s mind.

  “There is going to be a grand opening of another kind, a secret kind, at noon. In the basement,” I leaned toward her to whisper.

  “Really?” She leaned closer to me. “What do you have planned? Does it involve booze?”

  “No. Books. Actual hold-in-your-hands books. And it’s very hush-hush.” I pressed a finger to my lips.

  She did the same.

  After a moment, she giggled. Her eyes sparkled. “It’ll be a kind of protest? I can’t wait to see what you have planned. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.”

  “I’ve not done anything too shocking,” I warned.

  “Honey, the more shocking the better. I’m hoping the Wi-Fi crashes in the middle of the presentation or one of those funny printers in the other room blows up.”

  “Gracious, that would be a disaster,” I said, holding back a laugh.

  “At least it wouldn’t be boring. Could you imagine the look on Mayor Goodvale’s face if something went wrong? He’d turn all purple. And that’s such a bad color for him. Oh, my, that was a terrible thing to say. I can’t believe it came out of my mouth.” She laughed. The loud braying sound caught Mrs. Farnsworth’s attention. The older woman shushed us.

  Delanie slapped a hand over her mouth, which only made her laugh harder. She waved her other hand at me as she hurried toward the bathroom.

  “That poor woman,” Tori said as she wandered over to the desk. “She’s so broken up over what happened to her favorite place, she’s lost her mind, not that she had much of a mind to lose in the first place.”

  “Actually, I told her about our other opening. I think it made her uncontrollably giddy.”

  “She wasn’t on our list,” Tori admonished.

  “There is no list.” Not officially. While we hadn’t compiled a list of library patrons to invite to our basement opening, Tori, Flossie, and I had discussed whom we should invite. Over the past week, we’d quietly talked with longtime library patrons, especially those who were the most vocal about the changes to the library. For everyone else—especially those who couldn’t keep a secret even if their life depended on it—we planned to let them borrow books out of my tote bag, without letting them in on the bookroom.

  Flossie had argued against including Delanie because of her close relationship with Mrs. Farnsworth.

  “Delanie was close to tears when she came in,” I explained. “How could I not invite her into our new library? I’m sure if we explain things, she’ll keep quiet.”

  Actually, I suddenly wasn’t at all sure about that. Delanie and Mrs. Farnsworth belonged to the same book club. Delanie drove Mrs. Farnsworth to church on Sundays. They often shopped together.

  The back of my neck started to burn. Had I just made a huge mistake? Would my secret bookroom be exposed even before I had a chance to open it?

  Tori shook her head. “You know what Benjamin Franklin said about secrets. ‘Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’”

  “Yes, but this is a library. I didn’t take those books for myself. I did it for the community.”
The entire community. “It’s a risk we’ll be taking every time we invite someone downstairs to browse the shelves.”

  “But Delanie?” Tori said with a look of distaste.

  “What do you have against her?” I asked.

  She glanced over at Delanie. The older woman had returned from the bathroom, her makeup as fresh as ever. She was hugging Mrs. Farnsworth. “Nothing. What could I possibly have against her? She’s a paragon. Well, I guess I should check out the competition. Is the library’s coffee shop scheduled to open as well today?”

  “Promptly after the ribbon cutting. They’ve hired two new employees to act as baristas.”

  “I know. They used to work for me. I trained them.” She headed off in the direction of the new café, which used to be the children’s section.

  “I’m surprised to see her here. I would have thought this would be the last place she’d want to be. And today, of all days,” Betty Crawley said as she came toward me. She, too, had picked a vintage dress for the occasion. Hers was slate gray. She’d even added a matching pillbox hat. It sat on top of her blonde pageboy hairdo. Her heels click-clacked on the terrazzo floor.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Why, Miss Victoria Green, of course.” She scanned the circulation desk as if searching for something.

  “Tori is here to support me. Can I help you with—?”

  Her eyes widened. “Right. I’d forgotten. Friends. You’re Becket’s girl? Trudy?”

  “Trudell,” I corrected.

  “Of course. You and Tori have been friends since grade school, haven’t you?”

  It sounded like an accusation. “We are friends,” I said cautiously.

  “Right.” She rubbed her jaw speculatively. “Well, I was just thinking the other day that it was a good thing your friend wasn’t at the library during Duggar’s death. She’d be the prime suspect instead of . . . oops. I mean . . .” She shrugged. “There’s Delanie. I’d better go and offer her a shoulder to cry on. Maybe I can wrangle a good quote from her for the article I’m writing.”

  “Wait,” I called to her. “Why would anyone suspect Tori of wishing the town manager dead?”

  “Didn’t you know? Perhaps the two of you aren’t as close as people say.” She feigned distress. “Oh, well, I’ll tell you. Duggar had been sweet-talking a tech firm. They thought Cypress, with its easy access to Interstate 95 and reasonable land prices, would be an ideal place for their newest incubator offices. That’s where a tech business works on new products and programs,” she added.

  “I know what an incubator business is. What does any of that have to do with Tori’s supposed dislike of the town manager?” I was starting to lose my patience. Maybe if I waved my hands a little bit, Mrs. Farnsworth would notice and kick Betty out of the library again.

  “There’s no need to get snippy. I’m getting to that,” she drawled. “The business Duggar was courting was looking mighty hard at buying some buildings downtown and renovating them. They were especially excited about the building on the corner of Main and Lake.”

  “That’s where Perks is located.” Tori owned that building.

  “Ding. Ding. Give this girl a prize.”

  “The town manager was trying to get Tori to sell her business? That’s ridiculous. Tori would never sell. Everyone knows that. She loves that place. She’s put her heart and soul into renovating it.”

  “Oh, he knew that. I overheard him talking on the phone about it several weeks ago. He was working to get the building condemned and have the town take it using eminent domain. The paperwork was already in the pipeline when he died. But that’s all been put on hold now, hasn’t it? Perhaps the industry he was courting has even moved on by now. Your friend has certainly benefited from his death. Perhaps more than anyone else.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I repeated. “Tori would never . . . could never . . .”

  But as Betty walked away, her sights now set on Delanie, I couldn’t help but worry.

  Tori?

  Why didn’t she tell me about the trouble she was having with Duggar? We told each other everything. Why was this one thing such a big secret?

  Oh, I hated the direction my thoughts were heading. No, it couldn’t be true. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it.

  Did my best friend take matters into her own hands and rid herself of the threat to her coffee shop in a deadly way?

  Chapter Fifteen

  No. No. No. Not Tori. I shook my head to chase away the crazy thoughts Betty had planted. I was still shaking my head—like a nut—when Mayor Goodvale and his son, Luke, came into the library.

  “Good morning, Miss . . . um . . . er,” the mayor said. He looked to his son for help. “Miss . . . ?”

  Luke shrugged.

  “Becket,” I said without taking offense. I was used to people forgetting my name.

  “Ah, Becket’s girl. Y’all should be proud of the recognition the library is about to get. I heard that not one, but two national television news organizations will be on hand to cover the opening. One is here only because one of the reporters got wind of Duggar’s unfortunate . . .” He cleared his throat. “And four national newspapers have sent reporters. The more coverage we get, the easier it’ll be to restart our sales pitches to tech industries. Dare I say it? We’re about to become the Silicon Valley of the South. Or perhaps we’ll be known as the Silicon Foothills. There’s enough sand in these hills to earn that name honestly.” He laughed at the thought. “Perhaps it should be the Silicon Sandhills, or is that too redundant?”

  South Carolina’s sandhills were about fifty miles north of our town, but I figured it would be rude to correct him. Cypress was inside South Carolina’s coastal plain. There was a reason the town was called Cypress. Our ground was wet enough and swampy enough to encourage the kind of cypress trees that flourished in swamps.

  The mayor had latched his hands onto the lapels of his seersucker coat and had launched into what sounded like the speech he’d prepared for the opening.

  Luke tugged on his arm. “Father, I think you should talk with Mrs. Farnsworth and make sure everything is ready.” Unlike his father, Luke spoke quietly, and his eyes darted about.

  “Yes. We should do that,” the mayor said. “Keep this up, boy, and I might hire you as the new town manager.”

  “That’s not my specialty,” Luke was quick to say.

  “Nonsense,” the mayor countered. “You can do anything you put your mind to. All it takes is a little hard work and dedication. When I was your age, I was already manager of the feed and seed store.”

  “I know, Father.” Luke’s features relaxed. He was clearly in awe of his dad. “You have always been amazing.”

  The two of them were so wrapped up in their conversation that they left the desk without saying another word to me. I was used to that as well. “You’re a good people person, Luke. Perhaps if you weren’t so trusting, you’d not be in the—um—you’d still have that cushy job of yours.”

  The grand reopening celebration was about to begin. Town Council members started streaming through the doors along with camera operators, reporters, Police Chief Fisher, and Detective Ellerbe.

  No sign of Jace Bailey. I’m not sure why, but I breathed easier knowing he wasn’t around.

  Without Duggar to direct everyone, spectators and reporters jockeyed for the best positions and the mayor second-guessed where Mrs. Farnsworth had told him to stand. Eventually, though, everyone settled in their places and the ribbon was cut. Mrs. Farnsworth, standing to the right of Mayor Goodvale, looked as if she had an abscessed tooth. Anne Lowery, standing to his left, bounced on the balls of her feet like an energetic child.

  I remained stationed at the circulation desk, happy to be away from the crowded foyer. The mayor cleared his throat several times before beginning a long speech that eulogized Duggar while also praising the l
ocal police and promoting the town’s technological advances.

  “It’s a load of hogwash, if you ask me,” someone beside me whispered.

  I turned to find Krystal Capps, the town coroner, leaning against the desk. Her pink-tinted gray hair was slightly messy. She was dressed in a pink T-shirt that was tucked into the elastic waist of her jeans.

  “At least I’m visiting the library under better circumstances today. Last week—” She blew out a sharp breath. “Today isn’t much better, mind you.” She looked around with a wistful expression. “I grew up with this library. Every week my mother would bring me and let me pick out three books. I used to think the library limited how many books a child could check out. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered that it was my mother’s doing. When I asked her about it, she told me that she didn’t want me to be greedy. There were other children in the town who needed those books as badly as I did.” She sighed. “We were all poor as dirt back then. And yet, since we were all poor, no one seemed to really mind.”

  “Many of us are still that poor,” I whispered.

  Krystal shook her head. Her pink hair did a little dance. “It’s all changing. I remember when you could trade a shotgun for a lake house. Now, you have to compete with the Richie Riches who want to tear down the cottages and build mansions. You think the changes to this library are bad? Just wait and see what happens to the entire town in five years. I bet we won’t even be able to afford to stay in our own homes.”

  Mayor Goodvale had finished his speech. He cleared his throat and then introduced his son by espousing the young man’s technological brilliance. “He’s been my man behind the scenes, lending his expertise to our library’s and our town’s transformation.”

  Anne, still standing on the left side of the mayor, stiffened. She suddenly looked as if she wanted to punch someone.

  “Oh, dear,” I whispered. “This isn’t how Anne envisioned the ceremony.”

  “How’s that?” Krystal leaned closer to me.