by Penny Plume
The key didn’t fit. She flipped it over and tried again. Nope.
Classic Bart: So many vehicles he mixed up the keys, and of course couldn’t be bothered to double check. Well, if the murderer was savvy enough to figure out a lift-to-open glove compartment handle, she was screwed. Not because of the wallet, so much, unless they stole her low-limit cards and killed her credit. But if the killer got the keys, they’d have access to nearly every business in downtown Lost Haven to hide, kill, plunder, and plant evidence.
Shaking her head, she dragged everything with her and dropped out of the Jeep, muttering about Bart and Sherri caring more about their stupid mourning dinner attire than anything or anyone else.
Then she realized the dead body inside the mansion wasn’t just Harrison Kavanaugh — it was Bart’s dad.
Ah, man, she thought. Okay. Maybe don’t give him a hard time about the dumb key.
The windows of Horizon House blazed with light. Every room was lit, driving away any hint of darkness that dared creep past the security lights and, Jenna hoped, leaving nowhere for a murderer to hide within the walls. Even the round, glass room atop the mansion blazed, like a lighthouse sending a distress signal.
Garrett and Cabo waited for her on the front steps. Cabo was on the ground level, Garrett on the first step, and he glanced at the top of Cabo’s head, now just about even with his. He took another step up, looked down at the top of Cabo’s head, and seemed satisfied.
Good lord, Jenna thought.
Garrett said, “Now Jenna, I want you here so I know you’re safe. But Detective Olson might not want you inside, what with the crime scene and all. Why don’t you wait in the cruiser for now with the doors locked, and I’ll—“
Olson opened half of the massive front doors and stuck his head out. “Jenna, you’re here. Come on, let’s go. You have to see this. Cabo, you too. Garrett, I need you to go find Bart, let him know his dad’s dead. Makes us look bad if the next of kin finds out from someone else.”
He disappeared back inside, leaving Garrett standing with his mouth open.
Jenna was just as shocked—What did she have to see at Kavanaugh’s murder?—but stayed cool.
Still, she couldn’t resist. “I guess he doesn’t want you inside, Garrett, what with the crime scene and all.”
Cabo’s mouth twitched, but he and Jenna both kept straight faces and climbed the stairs toward…well, what?
Olson was halfway up the wide staircase to the second floor, waving them forward as soon as they stepped inside. The car-sized chandelier suspended above the foyer was in full illumination, gorgeous and borderline painful to look at with its million dazzling points.
Jenna looked through the house into the receiving room, where the wall of windows had turned into a giant mirror because of the light inside the house. McTavish stood facing the glass, his hands clasped behind him, seeming to stare into blackness.
Jenna paused at the bottom of the stairs, feeling the need to go check on him. Touch his arm, tell him it was going to be okay, whatever was done in this scenario.
Offer snacks?
His head turned slightly, and though she couldn’t be sure at that distance, she thought he looked at her in the reflection. Then he nodded, just once, a tiny bit, and went back to staring at nothing.
“Jenna, come on,” Olson said. “I need you to see something.”
“What is it?”
“It’s in the library.”
“Why me?”
“You’ll see.”
She took one step up and stopped. “I just want you to know: I’m not scared. I just want to be prepared for whatever you’re going to show me.”
“And I want you to be unprepared,” Olson said. “That’s the only way to get an honest reaction when you see it.”
Jenna pursed her lips.
Oh, he’s good.
Obviously unable to resist—Who could?—she followed Olson and Cabo up the stairs and turned the corner toward the library. Then the smell hit her. It was the same thick, coppery stench from when she’d found Ingrid’s body, but multiplied by about ten.
She wasn’t ready for it.
It took her back to that moment while simultaneously driving home the fact that Harrison Kavanaugh was dead in the next room, apparently with a lot of blood outside of his body.
She took a moment to stop and trace a finger along some very intricate woodwork in a sconce holder, using that same finger to hold her upright, should she start to keel forward.
She did not.
Well, if she wasn’t going to pass out, she probably had to go into the library.
If things get bad, just look at the books. The books will save you.
Cabo stood outside the double doors, his hands opening and closing, opening and closing. It was odd to see someone his size nervous, maybe even scared.
“I don’t want to go in,” he whispered.
Jenna winced. “That bad?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Do you have to go in?” she whispered.
“You shouldn’t have to do it yourself.”
“I’m actually alright. The smell got me for a second, but now I’m okay. Do you know why Olson wants me in there?”
“No. Unless…did you kill Mr. Kavanaugh?”
“What? No! Did you?”
“I already told you I didn’t.”
“I know, but you asked me, so…I just have no idea what Olson could want me for.”
“Well. Let’s find out.”
He grabbed her hand, his left completely swallowing her right. She could feel the incredible strength in his grip, and if he got startled she figured there was an excellent chance he’d crush her bones into powder without even noticing. But for now he held her hand gently, almost carefully, and stepped into the library.
Olson stood near the far right corner, almost where Kavanaugh had been the second time Jenna saw the library. The detective had his hands in his pockets and was mashing a piece of gum, looking down at something between the the tall bookshelves in the middle of the room. His tanned face and the paler sunglasses area around his eyes looked even more odd in the warm yellow light of the library, almost like a reverse burglar mask.
Jenna and Cabo stopped. The copper smell filled the room, and Jenna briefly considered pulling a book and pressing her nose into the open spine. Maybe if she were alone…
Olson asked Cabo, “Is this how you left him?”
Cabo’s hand briefly clenched Jenna’s. “Ah, man. Do I have to?”
“I’d like to know if anyone disturbed the body after you left. You didn’t happen to take any pictures, did you?”
“No. Jeez, no.”
“Yeah, that would have been weird. But helpful.” The gum snapped. “Come on, just a quick look.”
Cabo leaned forward but his feet didn’t move.
Jenna set her wallet and keys on the nearest shelf and wrapped her other hand around both of theirs. “It’s okay. I’ll go with you.”
“Jenna, no…”
“As town historian I need to witness this myself. For posterity.”
And to see if he has any baking flour or chocolate on him…
They stepped together around the shelf and looked down.
Harrison Kavanaugh was face-down on the thick carpet, his arms splayed at uncomfortable angles. His perfect white hair was a complete mess, caked with blood and what appeared to be bits of brain and skull. The entire head was misshapen, like someone had squished it from the crown and it had nowhere to go but out.
The smirking bust of someone (she still thought it might be Teddy Roosevelt) stared up from the floor next to Kavanaugh. Blood and more bits and pieces clung to the bronze face.
“Boof,” Cabo said.
Olson put a hand on his arm. “You okay, big guy? If you’re gonna faint, fall that way. Not on the body, please.”
“I’m good,” Cabo said, his voice thick. He swallowed, a dry clicking sound. “I’m good.”
Jenna
stared into Kavanaugh’s head. Memories had lived there, along with languages, calculations, directions, book titles, and devious schemes to destroy her beloved town. Now it was just a mangled mess.
Tacky blood was pooled beneath his face and sprayed across the carpet, shelves, and oh no, the books! Spines were stained on every row of the narrow aisle, with large splatters across the lower books and fine specks on the upper.
“Grisly,” Olson said, smacking the gum. “From what I can tell so far, he was walking or standing here, between the shelves, when somebody pushed the bust off from the other side. Bullseye, nailed him.”
“Ug,” Cabo said.
“Then, and I’ll need forensics to confirm this, I think they came around the corner, picked up the bust, and gave him a few more whacks, just to be sure.”
“Terrible,” Jenna said. “How much does that thing weigh?”
Olson shrugged. “Nobody touches it until we dust for prints, but I’d guess seventy pounds, maybe more. That’s a big head.”
No way could Wilford lift that, Jenna thought.
“So my first question would be for his bodyguard,” Olson said. He grinned at Cabo. “Where were you?”
Cabo stared at the body. “Mr. Kavanaugh was in here, looking through the books for something. I was with him. He told me he couldn’t think with my breathing and grunting going on, and had me go downstairs to get some dinner from McTavish.”
“Breathing and grunting?” Olson said. “What, were you doing pushups or something?”
“I was just standing. Right there.” He pointed to the shelves near the door. “I was reading Seneca. I thought I was being quiet, but who knows. Sometimes Seneca gets me fired up.”
“Mm,” Olson said, chewing. “So you went downstairs.”
“I went downstairs and got some food in the kitchen.”
“And what time was this?”
“8:47,” Cabo said. “I remember looking at the clock in the kitchen and checking my watch to make sure I was synchronized with home base.”
“Nice,” Olson said. “McTavish was there?”
“Yes. I asked if there were any leftovers from the thing this morning.”
“The pastry puffs?” Olson said.
Cabo nodded, guilty. “Yeah. It’s not my cheat day, but I needed some carbs. I was beat. I had those and some cold cuts.”
“McTavish was there the whole time?”
“Pretty much. When he wasn’t in the kitchen, I could hear him moving stuff around in the pantry and dining room.”
Jenna listened intently. So far these were all questions she would have asked. Though she might have also asked if there were still any puffs left.
“Then what?” Olson said.
“I came back up here and found him like this. I stood right here, where I am now, and when I saw him I dropped down and rolled him — sorry, I guess that was bad — to see if he was still alive. He obviously wasn’t, but I still pressed on his back a few times.”
Olson frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to try some sort of reverse CPR, but I knew if I rolled him all the way over his brains would fall out. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. So I thumped him on the back a few times, kinda shook him a little, and finally realized he was long gone.”
“Interesting,” Olson said. “Did you see anyone else?”
“No. I thought it was me, Mr. Kavanaugh and McTavish here. That’s the only reason I left the library; I was going to be with the only other person in the house, so there’s no way he could pull anything.”
“Who else could get in and out at that time of night?” Olson said. “Bart and Sherri? With the security gate and access codes on all the exterior doors, nobody else would make it past the yard outside, if they got that far.”
Cabo shook his head. “If they were here, I never saw them.”
“Wait!” Jenna poked him in the arm. “You said 8:47?”
“Yeah. And ow.”
“Sorry.” She turned to Olson. “I saw Bart and Sherri driving downtown around that time. They were going to dinner at the Marina Grill.”
“You’re sure it was them?”
“Positive. I was upset about the display in Sherri’s storefront, and then I saw them all dressed up and I thought about going to the restaurant to make a scene, but then…”
Olson was blinking in the flood of words.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jenna said. “I saw them. They weren’t here.”
“Well shoot,” Olson said. “I mean, that’s good, because those kids are pretty decent, but it sure would have been nice to wrap this up.” He looked at Cabo. “So you sloshed the body around, compromising the crime scene and making my life miserable. Then what?”
“I stood back and tried to figure out what to do.”
“911, maybe?” Olson said. “Just a thought.”
“No offense, but I didn’t know who I could trust. It looked really bad, me being the bodyguard, covered in blood.” He looked down at the smears on his suit and shirt. “I guess it still looks pretty bad.”
“Yeah, I get that. So you…”
“I went to The Welcome Shoppe.”
“Ah, souvenirs!” Olson said. “The same thing everybody does after fleeing a murder scene.”
“Jenna is the only person I know here who wouldn’t think I killed Mr. Kavanaugh.”
“And why is that?” Olson asked.
Yeah, Jenna wondered, why is that? Because I’m not so sure…
“She knows books. She knows I adhere to the stoic philosophies. And she saw how Mr. Kavanaugh spoke to me in such a way that, if I was going to murder him, I would have done it right then and there. But I didn’t, because I’m not a murderer.”
Olson’s tan forehead wrinkled. He turned to Jenna. “Did that make sense to you?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Huh. Well, I’ll buy it for now, but I hope you don’t have to convince a jury of it. We in law enforcement classify that sort of thing as ‘nonsense.’ So you fled the scene, went to The Welcome Shoppe, and that’s about when Sheriff Bowers showed up.”
“Right,” Cabo said.
“You two didn’t have time to conspire or come up with alibis before he arrived?”
“No,” they said together.
Olson looked at each of them, back and forth, a few times. “Jenna, did it seem odd to you that he showed up at your door covered in blood?”
She considered for a moment. “A bit. But it’s been an odd day.”
“Well, you got that right,” Olson said. “I can follow up with Sheriff Bowers for the rest, but I’ll need official statements from both of you eventually. For now, though, Jenna: I didn’t ask you to come in here so I could grill you while you look at this mess.”
The poor books, Jenna thought, then caught herself.
“Then, why?”
Olson pointed a finger gun at Mr. Kavanaugh’s corpse. “He left you a note.”
“A note?” Jenna said. “For me? Why?”
“I’m hoping you can answer that,” Olson said. “It isn’t even a note, really — it’s more like a mini Will and Testament. Not legally binding, of course, but still…”
Jenna’s breath stopped. “Did he give me Horizon House?”
Olson coughed on the gum. “This place? No. He just…no.”
“Oh. I suppose that’s for the best. The electricity bill alone is probably more than my mortgage.”
“Yeah, you’d be shut off within a month,” Olson said. “Anyway, the note is over there on the chair by the window. Don’t walk through the blood and brains, please.”
Jenna glanced at Cabo, her eyebrows raised.
He shrugged. “I didn’t see the note.”
She backed up and walked down the aisle on the right, between the shelves and the exterior wall. The legal pad was on the plush chair with one of the fat pens angled across its surface. Her throat tightened as she got closer and she realized she was holding her breath.
Wha
t could it possibly say?
Was it an apology?
A confession?
Olson and Cabo followed.
“Don’t touch anything, please,” Olson said. “Eyeballs only.”
Jenna leaned over the chair and read the note:
I hereby bequeath to you the Jeep. And the most boring book in the world.
- H. Kavanaugh
Jenna read it again, then a third time, trying to make sense of it.
“He’s giving you the Jeep?” Cabo asked.
“I guess so,” she said, absently. She was thinking about the book.
The most boring book in the world? What did that mean? Was he being sarcastic?
“Is that legit?” Cabo said.
Olson shrugged. “Like I said, it’s not legally binding, but it does seem to be his last wish. And he took the time to write ‘hereby bequeath,’ so he was obviously serious. As long as nobody disputes it, I don’t see any problems. A Jeep and some book—quite boring, apparently—I don’t think the estate is going to miss them.”
“Hold on,” Jenna said. “The most boring book. He’s not saying that to me, I said that to him.”
“Say what now?” Olson said.
Jenna turned to Cabo. “The book he was reading when we were all in here. A Treatise on…something. It was over there.”
She pointed to the other corner and hurried that way. Olson and Cabo followed again, sharing an uncertain look.
Jenna scanned the shelf just below eye-level. The book had been brown, with a worn leather cover. She remembered the sound of it sliding and thumping home among its neighbors…there!
A Treatise on Fair Negotiations in the Lumber Industry
“This is the book,” she said. “Can I touch it?”
Olson squinted at the spine. “Yikes. That is the most boring book in the world. Hold on.”
He snapped on a pair of light blue latex gloves and reached along the top of the books to pull the Treatise out from the back.
“Might be prints here,” he muttered. He slid the book out and lifted it with his index fingers pressed along the top and bottom of the pages, just inside the spine. Carrying it like that, he turned and set the book on its back on the small table next to the plush chair.
Touching just the bottom corner of the cover, he flipped the book open.
