Borrowed Time

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  “Anything you want,” said Grayson expansively. He must have meant this to be encouraging, but the number of possible directions I could go in made the assignment seem totally overwhelming.

  I said, “How about this: I’ll write something that’s sort of an essay at the top, then mention upcoming library programs and give a book recommendation at the bottom. Would that format be okay? That way it’s a little bit of everything.”

  “Sounds perfect. Any ideas for the essay part?”

  One thing came to mind quickly. I frequently had to read books that I didn’t pick myself—recommendations from patrons who wanted to share their favorite books with me. “Maybe something on books we feel obligated to read, don’t really enjoy at the beginning, and then like later on. You know—books that family gifts us, books that friends gush over. I was tasked with reading Ulysses not long ago and hated the thing until I was about halfway through.”

  Grayson chuckled on the other end. “So you’re one of those people who advocates for sticking with a book, even if you don’t really get into it right away.”

  “Actually, no, I’m not. Totally the opposite, in fact. There are far too many books out there for us to read in our lifetimes, even if we read all day long. If you don’t connect with a story, try something else. Better yet, always get your books from the library so you haven’t even made a financial investment in the story and won’t feel bad about abandoning it.”

  “I like that you worked a plug for the library in the middle of that.” Grayson’s tone was teasing and I flushed again.

  “Apparently, I can’t help myself,” I said dryly. “Anyway, will that work?”

  “It sounds great. But you don’t have to pass all your ideas by me—that’s why I picked you for the column. I know you’ll do a good job.”

  I saw Linus, one of my favorite patrons, walking in the direction of the desk and said, “I’d better run. I’ll send it over to you as soon as I’m done.”

  Linus was retired, but always neatly dressed in an immaculate suit. He’d lost his wife just a few years before. He wore large spectacles that lent him an owlish expression. He loved a routine and had been coming here daily since his wife had passed, reading the library’s newspapers in the morning, segueing to fiction, then nonfiction. He always left at precisely noon for lunch, returning forty-five minutes later. He’d always been perfectly polite, but had never spoken beyond good morning until Luna drew him out when she started working here. Now, he and I had become friendly in a quiet way.

  “Hi, Linus,” I said with a smile.

  He smiled back. “Hi.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering about the dog outside.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “The dog.” I winced. “I hope she didn’t bother you. Jump on you or something?” I glanced at his suit and thought that muddy paws would certainly do a number on it.

  He shook his head. “Not at all. But I was just wondering about her.”

  “She showed up while I was away at lunch. No collar or tags. I think I’m going to have to get her to the vet to see if she has microchips. And I’ve made up some flyers.”

  Linus nodded thoughtfully. “But won’t the veterinarian’s office be closed by the time you get out of the library?”

  “Good point.” Obviously I hadn’t had my thinking cap on. There are places in town that are open normal business hours, but the library isn’t one of them.

  Luna hurried up to us, looking warily over her shoulder toward Wilson’s office door. “Is the coast clear?”

  Linus and I stared at her. “Clear for what?” I asked.

  She held up a tote bag she was holding and pulled out a plastic container. “To feed the dog out there.”

  I frowned. “Is that your lunch?”

  “It’s the lunch I packed for myself today before I realized I was going out for a tremendous, fancy meal. Don’t you think he’ll be okay eating sweet potatoes, broccoli, and carrots?”

  I looked the foods up on my computer. “Looks like they’ll be fine to give dogs. Maybe go light on the broccoli, since that’s a lot of fiber.”

  “Okay. Better run while Wilson’s not around.” Luna turned toward the door.

  Linus said hesitantly, “I could help. If you need help.”

  “Sure!” Luna beamed at him.

  “And I can take her to the vet to check for microchips, too.” He flushed. “Since I believe you’re both getting out after the vet may have closed?”

  “Sure thing! That would be great, Linus. Okay, let’s do our secret food mission real quick. We’ll find out if this dog likes vegetables or not.”

  While they were outside, I helped a student find a couple of books he needed for a report he was working on. When I walked back over to the circulation desk, Luna was back.

  “What happened to Linus?” I asked.

  “You won’t believe this, but he’s gone to the store to get a harness and a leash.” She held up her watch so I could see it. “And it’s almost two o’clock! It’s time for him to be sitting over in the periodical section reading nonfiction or something. You know what a tight schedule he puts himself on.”

  I said slowly, “That’s pretty amazing. Honestly, not following his routine is almost alarming. If he didn’t show up at the library one day, I wouldn’t hesitate to call Burton to do a wellness check on him.”

  “Same.” She looked at the door and shook her head.

  “Maybe he’s tired of being alone,” I offered. “He lives a pretty solitary life for a guy who spends his days in a very public place.”

  Luna nodded. “He only comes over to talk every now and then. And it’s never for very long.”

  “Maybe he and the dog hit it off?” I asked.

  Luna thought about this for a moment. “He did talk to her in a very low voice for a while and she whimpered back to him. Yeah, they did sort of hit it off.”

  “I would think owning a dog would be one way to avoid being alone without having to totally change your usual routine by reaching out to other people, making friends, that sort of thing.”

  “Exactly,” said Luna. “And now I’m hoping that nobody steps forward to claim the dog. I mean, she’s a sweet animal and didn’t complain at all about eating somebody’s cold vegetables. I grabbed one of Fitz’s extra water bowls and put it out there near the bushes, too. Hopefully all under Wilson’s radar.”

  We both looked in the direction of his office. “He’s been in there since we came back. I think he’s dreaming up ways of spending the library windfall,” I said.

  I glanced at the clock. “Hey, I’ve got to go ahead and start setting up the community room for film club.”

  “Oh, right. Remember, that’s the future Grace Armstrong Community Room, ha. You’ve got somebody else presenting today?”

  “Timothy.” I grinned at Luna. “It should be good.”

  “Well, I know Mom is looking forward to it. She thinks Timothy is amazing.”

  “He is, for sure.” Timothy was a lovable, gangly home-schooled high school kid who was truly an old soul. He didn’t relate to his peer group very well, but he was warmly embraced by the motley assortment of folks in the library film club. There he found people who seemed to get his interest in classic films and difficult books. He was the one who’d set me on the course to read Ulysses.

  “What movie did he pick?” asked Luna. “I could kind of see him going with Blade Runner or something like that.”

  “He might have picked that, but I think he was trying to defer to the different folks in the group. He picked The Princess Bride.”

  Luna grinned. “Oh, my gosh, that’s one of my all-time favorites. I wish I could sneak in there and watch it.” She cast a glance over at the children’s section. “But I’ve got to get back over there before it starts really getting busy. Have a lot of people in the group seen it?”

  “Actually, it sounded like just a couple had, which is pretty amazing. I think it’s one of those things where it’s been on everybody’s l
ist to watch, but no one really had.”

  “Well, they’re in for a treat,” said Luna. She frowned. “Actually, I’m not sure my mom has even watched it. It’s going to be right up her alley.”

  I started setting up for the club meeting, pulling out chairs and setting up the computer to show the movie. After a few minutes, Timothy came in to give me a hand.

  He grinned at me. “I’m really pumped about this movie today. Hope we have a good turnout from the club.”

  I said, “There may be some newcomers here, too. I had a really good response on social media when I did a post about the movie.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I saw it. Fitz made it practically go viral.”

  Fitz was sitting with a toy sword in the post. He’d looked fetching, as usual.

  I was glad to see Timothy seemed totally relaxed and excited about talking about the film instead of being worried about speaking in front of a group. Since he’d joined film club, I’d watched him really come out of his shell.

  A few minutes later, members started filing in, joking with each other and catching up. Mona came in, too, and sat up front.

  “I’ve heard so many good things about The Princess Bride that I want a front-row seat,” she said with a smile.

  I noticed that this time she hadn’t brought any knitting to work on. That was a good sign.

  Timothy said, “I still can’t believe you haven’t seen it. You’re going to love it.”

  Aside from our regulars, I saw some new faces, probably due to the Fitz ad. I greeted them all and gave them a little printout of upcoming films in case they wanted to join us again. I was surprised to see Kyle come in, but went quickly over to greet him.

  “Thanks for coming by,” I said to him.

  He gave me a smile, but I noticed his eyes were tired. “You made it sound fun, so I thought I’d give it a go.”

  “We’ve got a little bit of a different setup this time,” I said and explained how different members were sharing their favorite films. I introduced him to a few of the other members. Then I pointed out where the popcorn was and the lemonade and he settled into a chair as Timothy dimmed the lights and got us started.

  The group was very receptive to the movie and were laughing uproariously at parts. I glanced over at Timothy and saw how pleased he was. After the film was over, he gave some background and some trivia about the movie and started off what ended up being a great discussion.

  I saw Wilson peering in through the window at one point, seeming pleased by the response. I smiled as I saw his gaze pause on Mona before he quickly glanced away.

  I walked over to Kyle, who was looking my way. “How did you like it?”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it plenty of times. But the discussion was great and I loved the kid’s rundown on the trivia and the making of the film. The background he gave was really solid.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be sure to share that with him,” I said.

  Kyle shook his head. “You don’t have to—I’ll tell him myself.” He grinned. “I’m just waiting for a chance.”

  Timothy was indeed surrounded by film club members telling him what a great job he’d done and talking more about the film. They appeared to be suggesting that they all come dressed up as one of the characters from the movie when Halloween rolled around.

  After a while, the members filed out. Kyle spoke to Timothy and then Timothy left to catch up with someone who’d pulled out a book they thought he might like. It was just me and Kyle and I was putting the chairs away.

  “I can give you a hand with these,” he offered. And I gladly let him, since it took half the time to get the chore done.

  But I still thought it very coincidental that he’d chosen to come to film club and was lingering so long. It seemed to me that he had something on his mind.

  “How have you been?” I asked.

  He didn’t ask what I meant by that. “Okay, I guess. I don’t know. I’ve felt really bad about Scott’s death. Like I should have been able to help him somehow. We’d been friends since we were kids. We went to college together and into business together after that. I’ve known him forever.”

  It seemed like guilt was the common factor feeling of everybody I’d talked to. “What could you have done, though? If you’d tried to stop a murder, you might have ended up getting hurt, yourself.”

  He shook his head. “I knew Scott was in a bad way and I should have escorted him up to his room or something. He definitely shouldn’t have been swimming. He might have listened to me if I’d told him he should sleep it off.”

  I said, in a reasonable tone, “But it wasn’t the swimming that was the problem.”

  “No, it was really his attitude that was the problem. And somebody there’d had enough. See, that’s something else I could have helped with. I could have even driven him back home. He wasn’t usually that bad, you know. I guess I was as stunned as everybody else was. But when it happened, I wasn’t helping him at all. I was sleeping.” His tone was bitter.

  “Of course you were. I was, too. It had been a big day with lots of food, sun, and alcohol.”

  “And stress,” added Kyle with a wry smile.

  “That too. Which made everybody even more exhausted. There’s nothing more tiring than stress.”

  Kyle said, “I couldn’t even fall asleep right away because I was so wound up. I had to have time to decompress by myself. I watched part of a movie on my phone in my room for a while so I could relax enough to fall asleep.”

  “Did you hear anything while you were still up?”

  Kyle shook his head. “Nope. I was no help at all. The cops were asking me the same thing. ‘Was there someone outside in the hall while you were up?’ And I don’t have any clue because I had my earbuds in. I was trying to keep quiet so everybody else could sleep. I was distracting myself with the movie so I wouldn’t be tempted to go downstairs to the pool and beat Scott up.” He made a face. “That’s another reason I feel guilty. It’s not just that I couldn’t help save his life. It’s also that, even though he’s dead, I’m still pretty angry at him.”

  “That’s probably natural. He wasn’t being a great friend that day, after all.”

  “No. Not to me and not to anybody else there. Especially Kelly.” Kyle rolled his eyes.

  “I understood they usually weren’t that bad together.”

  Kyle said, “Well, there are different levels of bad. They were usually nothing like they were over the weekend. I went out with them for lunch fairly often. But they’ve always had these really animated random arguments. I mean, those two could argue over anything. Even stuff that should really just be a friendly, academic argument. I heard them arguing over the best Disney movies, for crying out loud.”

  I chuckled and Kyle nodded. “Right? I mean, totally ridiculous. And it might start out as something sort of friendly, then it would escalate and the next thing you knew, it would get really heated. Those two were volatile, especially when they were together. I guess when things were good between them, things were good. But most of us saw the craziness. I worried they’d end up married. Who could live that way, every day, together?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment and continued, “So everybody apparently is saying they were asleep. Everybody. But someone in the group wasn’t sleeping at all. Someone got up, went downstairs, and hit Scott’s head with a bottle.”

  I nodded. “Did you have any ideas?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. After all, I grew up with these folks. I don’t think of any of them as a killer. The only thing I can imagine is that somebody lost control. Scott pushed the wrong person’s buttons one time too many, you know? Maybe they’d had too much to drink, too, and weren’t thinking straight. They grabbed the closest thing to hand which would, of course, be a champagne bottle since there were gobs of them down there. Then they freaked out and ran off.” He glanced over at me. “I can’t help but wonder if maybe it was Kelly.”

  “Kelly? But Kelly wasn’t there.”

 
; “Wasn’t she?” Kyle snapped his lips together as if he were annoyed with himself for saying that much.

  “What do you mean? Did Kelly come back later on?” I was starting to wonder how on earth I’d managed to sleep so soundly there.

  He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “She came back before I headed upstairs for the night. She was furious. Scott had sent her a text message breaking up with her.”

  I made a face.

  “Exactly. I mean, who does that? It’s kind of an eighth-grade move. I’m actually really surprised Scott would do something like that.” He frowned. “Actually, he seemed a little surprised. Maybe he was so drunk at the time that he sent it that it had totally slipped his mind.”

  “Maybe so,” I said. “But he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who tried avoiding conflict by breaking up via text.”

  “Right. He had plenty of conflict over the weekend—why not have more?”

  I said, “So Kelly came back. But she ended up leaving Grace’s house and heading back home again. And yesterday morning, she seemed really stunned about Scott’s death. And upset.”

  “I’m sure she was upset about it. She’s known Scott all her life. Was she stunned?” Kyle shrugged. “She seemed to be.”

  “So, the question is, did Kelly end up back home again before or after Scott died?”

  “No idea. Like I said, I went upstairs, watched a movie on my phone for a while to chill out, and then fell asleep. Who knows what happened the rest of the night?”

  “Did you tell the police about this?” I asked slowly.

  “Nope.” My expression must have been very disapproving because he laughed. “Look, Ann, I didn’t have any proof that Kelly did anything at all besides have an argument with Scott. She ended up back at her own place. It’s up to her to come clean . . . and maybe she did. Anyway, the cops would have Scott’s phone, so they’d see he sent her that text message. Besides, Kelly is my friend. That doesn’t mean I don’t see her faults and she doesn’t see mine. It doesn’t mean I don’t criticize her to her face about the kind of guys she chooses over and over again to go out with. But it does mean she can expect to have my back.”