The Broken Spine

by Dorothy St. James

  “Mrs. Farnsworth didn’t come in this morning. I’ve alerted the police. They’re looking for her.”

  He swore quietly. “In that case, you’d better come inside.”

  “The police department knows where I am and will try to call me any minute with an update,” I warned him.

  “Good.” He sounded like he meant it. He gestured for me to precede him into his store.

  “I’ve been worried that something might happen to one of you.” He swore again. “I shouldn’t have kept quiet. I’ve been arguing with myself all morning about whether I should have said something yesterday after Luke got hurt.” He tried to drag his rusty, wet hand through his hair again, but stopped himself at the last moment.

  “Is this about that man I saw in the secret bookroom? What was his name? Grundle?”

  “Grandle,” he corrected. “And no, forget that you met him.” He sucked in a quick breath. “I’ll never forgive myself if someone gets hurt.”

  “Someone like Mrs. Farnsworth?” I asked, starting to panic.

  “Or yourself.” He stepped around a puddle on the concrete floor.

  “Me?” I asked. While the flooding had subsided, I could clearly see a waterline about a foot high on the wooden shelves that were being built along the walls. As Charlie had mentioned, there were boxes of books set up on folding tables all over the shop. “Why would anyone be interested in hurting me?”

  “Hmmm . . .” He picked up a roll of paper towels that was sitting out on the shop’s ancient checkout counter and used several pieces to wipe off his hands.

  “What? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “You, Mrs. Farnsworth, and Anne Lowery—the three of you—were all at the library at the time of the murder. One or all of you might have seen something you shouldn’t have. That makes you a danger.”

  “To the killer?”

  He frowned for a moment before nodding.

  My heart started beating faster. “What . . . what do you need to tell me?”

  He crossed to the other side of the room, rummaged through a box of books, and hurried back. He handed me a copy of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

  I ran my finger over its spine. It didn’t have Cypress’s color-coded library label, but it was nearly identical to the book he’d been admiring in the secret bookroom. “Why are you giving me this? Did you take it from the library?”

  “No! I’d never steal from you.” After a tense moment he huffed. “I promised not to tell anyone about”—he paused—“about something that probably has nothing to do with the murder. I hope it has nothing to do with the murder. But it might. And the uncertainty is eating at me.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “I would if I could, but I’m a man of my word. However, me providing you with a clue isn’t breaking that promise. I hope it isn’t. And that’s what I’ve done.” He tapped the book’s cover. “I’ve handed you a clue.”

  I frowned at the hardcover classic mystery novel. “A clue?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “Do you mean this actual book or the plot of the book?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “What do you think?”

  “I think this isn’t helpful.”

  “Isn’t it?” He sounded surprised. “I should think my clue would explain everything to a knowledgeable librarian like you.”

  “We’re talking about a murder, and you think you’re helping by handing out riddles?” I waved the old book at him. “Just tell me what you know.”

  “Sorry, Tru, I made a promise. It’s a promise I regret. But a promise is a promise. And in the end, it might have nothing to do with the town manager’s demise. I sincerely hope it doesn’t. But if it does, I’ll break my word and go straight to the police.”

  Still frowning at the old book, I started to leave. But then I remembered the reason I was there in the first place. “I noticed that you and Luke were talking at Perks last night. The two of you were friends when you were both living in Vegas, right?”

  “Not friends,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew him from the casinos. We talked a few times about Cypress. He’s the one who gave me the idea to open a shop here since the real estate prices were so low.”

  “Lucky for us,” I said. “Our town hasn’t had a bookstore, used or otherwise, for decades. Do you know anything about Luke’s former job? Did he work at a casino?”

  “Work there? No. He went to the casinos to play sometimes. But he was mostly there because that’s where the moneylenders liked to do business. That boy couldn’t control his, er, habit. It got him into”—he paused as if searching for the right word—“trouble.”

  “Trouble? He’s in debt?”

  Charlie nodded. “More debt than he can handle. He didn’t get laid off from his job. He quit and ran back to Daddy. He ran back home to escape some less-than-friendly moneylenders.”

  “You mean Grandle? Oh, my goodness, are you suggesting that scary guy who destroyed the library’s phone book attacked Luke?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Tori told me you worked in security in Las Vegas. Did you work for a casino?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Something like what?” For someone who acted as if he wanted to be helpful, Charlie was frustratingly short on information. “What did you do there?”

  “I don’t want to bore you with details.”

  “Oh, I’m rarely bored,” I said, but I could tell he wasn’t ready to talk about his past life in Vegas. “What were you and Luke talking about last night?”

  Charlie huffed before admitting, “Grandle.”

  “Let me get this straight. Luke gambled his way into debt, and now he’s hoping his daddy will get him out of trouble?”

  “He wasn’t a serious gambler,” Charlie said. “Online shopping is what did him in.”

  “Online shopping? Are you serious?”

  Charlie snorted. “Serious as that thug who beat up Luke.”

  “What did he buy?” I asked.

  “What didn’t he buy? Apparently, he’d click on every ad that popped up on his screen. Electronics. Clothes. Gadgets. Stuffed dogs with flat, squishy faces. The ugliest angel figurines. Tons of those. Never seen so many in my life. Luke told me last night that his dad had sold it all, but he didn’t earn back even a fraction of what Luke owes Grandle.”

  “Why doesn’t the mayor take out a loan and make the problem go away?” That seemed like the easiest solution.

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I imagine that it’s because he can’t. Guys like Grandle don’t travel across the country for small sums of money.”

  I held up the book he’d given me as a clue. “And you think this business with Grandle and Luke is somehow linked to Duggar’s death? Is that the thing you can’t talk about?”

  He opened the door, a clear invitation for me to leave his store. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have a pipe to fix.”

  I started to leave. But then something struck me. “You don’t think Grandle somehow got inside the library and killed Duggar, do you?”

  “No. If I did, I’d go to the police right now.” He tried to close the door.

  But I had more questions. “Then why are we worried that something might have happened to Mrs. Farnsworth? Did she see Grandle doing something shifty at the library’s grand reopening? Did she confront him? Do you think he did something to Mrs. Farnsworth to keep her quiet?”

  “Honestly, Tru? I don’t know. I hope not.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I crushed the copy of The Maltese Falcon to my chest while fumbling with my phone. I needed to warn the police to keep an eye out for murderous loan sharks. I needed to warn them that Grandle might have done something to Mrs. Farnsworth.

 
; Just as I’d started to dial the number, my phone rang. “You’ll never believe what’s happening over here,” Janie Curry, the police department dispatcher, whispered when I answered. “Mrs. Farnsworth is here. Giving testimony. Not like testimony in church, mind you, but close.”

  “Testimony?”

  “She’s saying she remembered something about the day Duggar shuffled off his mortal coil. I don’t have all the details, but it has both the police chief and the mayor excited. Reminds me of a bunch of wasps flying out of a nest someone just bumped, the way they’re running around.”

  “Thank goodness.” I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Mrs. Farnsworth was safe.

  “Thank goodness? I don’t know what there is to be thankful about. Mrs. Farnsworth isn’t acting normal. She came in fluttering her hands everywhere. And that ain’t like her. I’ve lived in this lake town long enough to know when I’m smelling fish. Oh, look, that fellow from the state just ran into Fisher’s office. Oops, I’ve gotta go. There’s a call coming in on the other line.” Janie hung up.

  I stood on the sidewalk staring at my phone while I replayed the conversation in my mind.

  Mrs. Farnsworth had remembered something about what she saw on the day of the murder? Something she hadn’t thought to mention earlier? That didn’t seem likely. Her mind was a finely honed machine. She noticed everything. She remembered everything. It wouldn’t take her a week to recall a key piece of information. And she certainly wouldn’t rush over to the police station to deliver that information without making sure the library opened on time.

  Janie was right. Everything about this morning held the foul odor of rotten fish.

  I was still standing in the middle of the sidewalk trying to figure out what was really going on when Flossie wheeled toward me as if trying to win the Indy 500.

  “There you are!” she shouted. “You need to get to the library. Detective Bailey is searching for you.”

  “He is?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Well, it’s not to steal an English essay. Come on. Come on.” She maneuvered her wheelchair around and started back the way she’d come. I raced after her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jace looked awful. Well, let me amend that. He looked awful for someone as handsome as him. Compared to the rest of humanity, I suppose he appeared pretty normal. His hair was disheveled, and not artfully disheveled the way he usually wore it. His clothes, which looked like they were the exact same black T-shirt and jeans he’d worn to Perks last night, were rumpled and grubby with dirt. And dark smudges underlined his soulful blue eyes.

  By the time Flossie and I reached him, he was unlocking the library’s front door.

  “Mrs. Farnsworth gave you her key?” I squeaked.

  “She insisted the library open on time. And Fisher isn’t done taking her statement,” he explained. “She was going to walk out on him until I promised to supervise you and Anne. She has threatened to flay the three of us alive if anything goes wrong, by the way,” he added, paling a bit.

  “What can go wrong?” Anne asked. Apparently, she’d been pacing in front of the entrance the entire time that I’d been off in search of answers. She pushed Jace aside so she could get into the library. “The system I set up practically runs itself.”

  I grabbed Jace’s arm before he could follow her. “What’s really going on?”

  He looked at Flossie, who was beside me with her arms crossed, and then at me again. “You know I can’t—”

  “I know Mrs. Farnsworth didn’t suddenly remember some important piece of information. That’s not how her mind works.”

  His jaw tightened. “Yeah, I know.” He sounded angry about it. “And it sounds as if you already know as much as I do. Who inside the police department is feeding you information?”

  “I called and reported Mrs. Farnsworth missing. That’s how I discovered she was there.”

  “What in blue blazes is happening?” Flossie demanded as she rolled up the handicapped ramp to the front door.

  “Lots of things I can’t talk about. Please, just come inside and help get the library open so none of us ends up suffering Mrs. Farnsworth’s wrath.”

  We did as he asked because, quite frankly, we were all honestly terrified of Mrs. Farnsworth. Flossie set up her computer in the library’s new café area, where one of the baristas, who had come in behind us, was busy preparing for the morning.

  I stashed my purse and oversized tote bag in a lockable drawer at the circulation desk and started my morning routine.

  “Where’s Dewey?” Jace whispered.

  “At home,” I whispered back. “I was concerned that Anne would make trouble for me if I brought him this morning.”

  “Good thinking. Hey, wait. I thought y’all had disposed of all the printed books,” Jace said. Was it just my imagination, or did he sound suspicious?

  “That’s what the mayor ordered,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound guilty.

  “Then what are you doing with that?” He pointed to the copy of The Maltese Falcon Charlie had given me that I was still holding.

  “Oh, that? It’s a gift from a friend of the library.” I dropped it into the drawer with the rest of my stuff.

  While he frowned as if he didn’t believe me, I went to get the first step in my morning routine started, which was to brew the staff coffee. Jace followed me into a small storage closet that had been converted into a cramped employee break room. The room was barely large enough to hold two people, much less two people and two folding tables, a coffee maker, and a small refrigerator that hummed loudly.

  “You agree that Mrs. Farnsworth wouldn’t miraculously realize she witnessed something important on the day of the murder?” he asked after a long span of silence between us.

  “Even if she had, she wouldn’t go to the police station before opening the library.” She was a stickler for routine.

  He nodded.

  “Not to change the subject, but there was a man in the library yesterday, a stranger.” I figured someone needed to warn the police about Grandle. Charlie had already said he wouldn’t. Luke and the mayor were too ashamed to talk about Luke’s troubles. That meant the burden fell on me.

  “Lots of strangers came to the town for the library’s reopening ceremony.” Jace sounded tired. I added an extra scoop of coffee to the coffee maker’s filter. “I was told that Duggar had sent invitations to half the residents in the state.”

  “This man I’m talking about isn’t from around here. Not this state either.” The coffee maker started to gurgle. “He . . .” I couldn’t tell Jace about how he’d ripped out a page from the phone book, since the library wasn’t supposed to have phone books anymore. “He intimidated me.”

  “Intimidated?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sure plenty of people—”

  “No, I’m not some library mouse jumping at shadows. After the . . . um . . . incident, Charlie told me to avoid this man. He told me that if I ever see him again, that I need to walk in the other direction. He told me his name was Grandle. He’s a loan shark from Las Vegas.”

  “Charlie?” Jace raised a brow.

  “Not Charlie, Grandle. Grandle is the loan shark.”

  “And Charlie is the new guy in town who is opening a used bookstore?” Jace asked.

  “Yes, Charlie Newcastle. You met him the other day. He was helping me carry books. I mean, I was helping him carry books to his car.” I hated lying. It was too hard to keep the stories straight in my mind. “He’s moved here from Las Vegas. Luke had been living in Las Vegas too.”

  “It’s a big city.”

  “Yes, I know that. But Charlie and Luke knew each other. Charlie also told me how Luke had gotten himself into some kind of financial trouble. Big financial trouble. He believes this thug, this Grandle, is in town to collect.”

  “Really?” That piece of information s
eemed to catch Jace’s interest. “Sounds like I need to talk with Charlie.”

  “That might be prudent. It’s easy to connect the dots. Charlie warned me to avoid Grandle. Charlie and Luke are both from Las Vegas. Luke is running from moneylenders. Grandle, who probably is also from Vegas, would logically be the man who attacked Luke.”

  “I thought you believed Anne is the source of all the library’s recent troubles,” Jace reminded me.

  “I do. I mean, I think I do.” Didn’t I? “This new information complicates matters, doesn’t it?”

  “It might.” He nodded toward the coffee pot. The machine was still gurgling. “I could sorely use all of that right now.”

  “Give it another minute. It’ll taste better if you let it brew to the end.”

  We stood in silence with only the murmur of the coffee maker. He pulled his notebook from his pocket and started to take some notes. Finally, he looked up and asked me to describe Grandle. He wrote down everything I told him. “If you happen to see him again, I want you to call me, okay?”

  I agreed, and he handed me his card.

  “With this new information Mrs. Farnsworth is giving to Chief Fisher, are—?” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “Are y’all ready to make an arrest?”

  “Yeah,” he said angrily. “And what you’re telling me is only strengthening our case against him.”

  “You don’t mean Luke?” I asked stupidly. Who else could he have been talking about? “Are you sure? That doesn’t make sense. Duggar was like an uncle to Luke.”

  Without even thinking about it, I pulled out my phone with the thought of texting Charlie. Why did he give me a copy of The Maltese Falcon? Yes, the book ended with a betrayal. But was that really the clue he was trying to give me? I could think of at least a dozen books better suited for delivering such a message.

  Jace put his hand over mine to keep me from typing. “You can’t go telling everyone what I just told you.”