by Donna Doyle
“Okay. Arlo probably misses you.”
“Mrs. Sturgis said he’s been very well behaved,” Troy said, referring to the neighbor who was looking after Arlo in his absence.
“I’d be very well behaved, too, in front of Mrs. Sturgis,” Kelly said, thinking of the redoubtable woman who ran her home, her family, and her pets without tolerating any nonsense.
Troy laughed. “Me, too,” he said. “I figured that having Mrs. Sturgis look after Arlo was the best way to make sure he’d miss me while I was gone. If I’d asked you to look after him, he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me when I got back.”
“I wish I’d stayed home and looked in on Arlo,” Kelly said. “I wish I hadn’t gone to Punxsutawney.” What she really meant was that she wished that Troy had gone with her.
“I’ll pick you up on my way home,” he said.
“You pick up General Tso’s,” she said. “I’ll take myself over to your place.”
“What’s the matter?” he teased. “Don’t you think I’d take you back home?”
She was smiling when the call ended, and when she got into bed, she realized that if Troy had intended to take her mind off the events that troubled her, he had succeeded.
5
Murder Central
Troy came back from his National Guard weekend with the intention of listening to Kelly tell him what had happened in Punxsutawney and then getting her mind off it. He could understand why she was upset. This was different from Halloween, when her energy had been concentrated on proving that Lucas Krymanski was innocent of the crime for which he was accused. She had gone on the bus trip for the enjoyment—however dubiously Troy regarded it—of celebrating a regional event. He wanted to do what he could to get her mind off the murder, and from his perspective, the best way to do that was to settle into being a couple, not sleuthing partners.
But instead, as they ate, she provided him with all the details of the trip: what Lyola had disclosed about suspecting Mia Shaw of stealing money, the news that Lyola had been murdered, Mia’s reaction, and the investigative process that the state policeman undertook. Somehow, despite his firm plan to divert her from the subject of murder and focus her attentions on their relationship, he found himself acceding to her wish to find out anything that he could about the murder. So much for romance; it seemed like he and Kelly only clicked when there was a crime involved.
He groaned the next afternoon when he went in to work as he passed a van bearing the logo of one of the city television stations. It was as if the Halloween murder scene were being recreated in Settler Springs once again, even though the murder had taken place in another town.
“Not again,” he said with a grimace. “The TV crews.”
Leo looked up from his desk. He never seemed quite at ease occupying the chair in the office that had been Chief Stark’s domain, and upon Troy’s arrival, Leo came out to the common area where the other officers were stationed. Kyle was getting ready to go off duty.
“Yep,” he said. “It’s Murder, Central in Settler Springs these days. See you two tomorrow.”
“I suppose the TV crews are mainly out in Warren,” Troy said, “where the church is.”
“Mainly. Troy, I’m sorry I can’t stay tonight, but there’s a program at the school, and Austin would be disappointed if I missed it.”
“Sure, he would. You don’t want to miss that. When is the council going to free up funds so you can hire another officer?”
“They’re not going to hire anyone,” Leo said. “They’re going to keep us short until Chief Stark comes back.”
“He’s coming back?”
“The mayor wants him back. There’s nothing we can do about it. If you run into any trouble tonight, you call me, you hear?”
“Just go enjoy the program with your grandkids.” Troy realized that there was no merit in urging Leo to fight for the position. He didn’t have the backbone for it. Leo was a great guy. Whether he had the personality to be the police chief was less defined. Troy privately thought that Leo would always be waiting for Chief Stark to come back because going up against the mayor and the Stark name would take more vigor than Leo was capable of. Troy know that Chief Stark was venal. He also knew that, although Stark didn’t know how deeply involved Troy had been in the discovery that Stark’s son was the murderer in the Halloween case, it would only be a matter of time before the two of them locked horns, if in fact Stark did return to his former job.
Leo paused at the door. “Punxsutawney . . . I don’t much care for the place.”
“Kelly says it’s a nice little town,” Troy said, recalling Kelly’s reflections the night before. “She says they have twenty or so big statues of groundhogs all through the town.”
“Statues don’t kill people.”
“No,” Troy agreed. “But it doesn’t sound like it’s a hotbed of crime, either.”
“Punxsutawney is like any other town. It has its criminal element, too.” Leo looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he just said goodbye and left the station.
It was a quiet afternoon. One thing about the cold, Troy thought; it certainly lowered the crime rate. At least in Settler Springs, he amended, thinking of the murder on Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney. He wondered what Leo was talking about when he referred to the criminal element. What was crime like there, other than this aberrant one that might have been committed by one of the tourists, despite Leo’s remark about criminals. What was their trademark? Defacing the groundhog statues?
The door opened and Kelly entered the office. “Can you come up to the library?” she asked him.
“Hello, Kelly, how are you? Haven’t seen you in a couple of days. How’s it going? This weather, it’s really something, huh?”
He was joking but there was a tinge of irritation in his voice. Kelly heard it and was immediately contrite.
“I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean to push you into police officer mode.”
“It’s okay,” Troy said, remembering that she’d recently been through an upsetting experience and it meant something that she was coming to him for help. “What’s up?”
“Carmela . . . she broke down this afternoon when someone, a regular patron, asked her why she didn’t murder the groundhog for forecasting six more weeks of winter. It was just a joke, he didn’t mean anything by it, but Carmela just started sobbing.”
“That doesn’t sound like Carmela,” Troy remarked, thinking of the grumpy, middle-aged woman with the forbidding countenance. Kelly was the antithesis of the stereotypical librarian, but Carmela . . . well, she conformed to the image, even if the image wasn’t a fair or accurate one.
“I know. The patron felt terrible, I could tell. I told him that it was just very stressful for everyone, I didn’t want him to feel that he’d caused any problems, but after he left, Carmela started talking, and I don’t really understand what she’s talking about. I wondered if you’d have the time to talk to her?”
“Sure, if you think it’ll help but I’m not sure she’ll talk. I don’t think Carmela likes me much.”
“Oh, Carmela doesn’t really like anybody, but I think something’s really bothering her.”
“You think she’s the killer?” Troy asked, only half in jest as he let Kelly into the police car.
“Of course not,” Kelly was indignant. “She’s crotchety and not the easiest person to get along with, but that doesn’t make her a murderer.”
As usual, all heads turned when the patrons noticed Officer Kennedy coming into the library. Lucas Krymanski, who had finished his community service but came by several times a week to see if Kelly needed help with anything, gave Troy a friendly wave. The friends he was with looked askance at this familiarity. Other patrons either turned back to what they were doing or found a reason to leave. Troy was used to being met with this kind of reception when he appeared in uniform. He wasn’t sure he understood it, but it was no longer unfamiliar.
“If I go off with Carmela,” Tr
oy warned in a low voice, “it’s going to be the talk of the town by morning. People will be sure she’s being accused of the murder. It won’t occur to them that there’s no real reason to suspect her.”
“I’ve already thought of that,” Kelly said confidently. Raising her voice, she said, “Thanks, Officer Kennedy, for coming by. Carmela has the list of patrons whose books are seriously overdue. She’s in my office. You can go ahead in there and she’ll go over the list with you, so you know which addresses you need to go to first. This is our first step before we go to the magistrate.”
Troy’s lips twitched as he tried to refrain from smiling. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll shut the door, if that’s all right.”
“Absolutely. The list of overdue patrons is private.”
She opened the door to her office. “Carmela, Officer Kennedy is here to go over the overdue list with you. “She shut the door, aware as she did so that several patrons had taken the opportunity to leave the library, no doubt to go home and check the due dates on their library books.
6
Carmela Talks
“She comes up with the most outlandish ideas,” Carmela said crossly after Troy came into the office and Kelly shut the door. “Sometimes I wonder what kind of books she reads.”
“She doesn’t want people to speculate about why I’m here talking to you,” he said, irritated by Carmela’s attitude.
“No one has any reason to speculate about me,” Carmela said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
She probably hadn’t, but Troy had the feeling that Carmela wasn’t simply referring to the murder in Punxsutawney, but to the entire, blameless expanse of all her years. That she was judgmental, overly critical, ill-natured, and unfriendly wouldn’t seem, to her way of thinking, to be a true assessment of her character. In fairness, he realized as he sat down on one of the chairs in Kelly’s office, people weren’t put in prison because they had miserable personalities.
Nonetheless, he decided that he’d take a businesslike approach and see what it unearthed. He didn’t exactly know what he was looking for, but he couldn’t let Kelly down.
“So, Carmela,” he said, pulling out the pocket notebook that he kept on him. “You and the murder victim were at odds, I understand.” Kelly had told him that much, but it wouldn’t hurt, he judged, to start off with it.
Carmela’s eyes widened. “I didn’t kill her. She didn’t know anything about organizing a bus trips; that’s all. Money was missing from the envelope.”
“The envelope?”
“The reservation money was kept in a drawer in the secretary’s desk. Money should always be locked up,” Carmela said firmly, “but LifeLight Church does things their own way and there’s no reasoning with Lyola Knesbit. The day we left, the money still wasn’t there, even though she said it would be there. We charge a little extra, to make a profit, and she said that would be enough to pay for everything: the bus driver’s tip, the parking pass, those things. We’d already sent in the money for the Inner Circle reservations and everyone was paying their hotel reservation on their own.”
“We’re not talking about a lot of money missing here, then?”
Carmela bristled. “We like to give the bus driver a nice tip. It’s cold up there and he does a lot of waiting for us.”
“Are we talking in the hundreds or in the thousands,” he asked patiently.
“No, of course not!” Carmela retorted, offended by the thought of such largesse. “He doesn’t have to do anything but drive us there and park the bus.”
So much for gratitude and waiting in the cold. It was apparent that Carmela’s notions of generosity were not outweighed by her frugality.
“Were you at the festivities the entire time? I understand that the entertainment begins around five in the morning, followed by fireworks, and then the actual Groundhog Day business gets underway a little before seven-thirty in the morning.”
“That’s right. We got there before five o’clock in the morning—that’s when the entertainment starts—and crossed the bridge to Gobbler’s Knob. It’s very crowded; there are five hundred people in the Inner Circle alone and something like twenty thousand tourists in the whole area. There are tents set up with coffee, donuts, souvenirs, for people. Most of us stopped, but we don’t keep tabs on each other. We all wear our badges so that we can stand in the Inner Circle. That’s the best view,” she said.
Troy just nodded. A view of a groundhog seeing its shadow was something that he could just as easily pass on, but there was no reason to say that to Carmela, who obviously prized her yearly trip to the event.
“Did you stay there in the Inner Circle the whole time?”
Carmela hesitated. “No,” she said finally. “I saw one of the passengers, Mia Shaw, and I went after her. Lyola was convinced that Mia Shaw had taken the missing money and I wanted to ask her.”
“What time was this?”
“The country and western band was playing. I suppose it was around six o’clock. The ceremony hadn’t started yet.”
“Any idea why Mia Shaw wasn’t with the rest of you?”
“We were on our own, some people wanted to get things to eat and drink, or look at souvenirs. I thought maybe that’s what Mia Shaw was doing. I went back across the little bridge—not the bridges that go into Punxsutawney and lead out of it, but the bridge that leads to Gobbler’s Knob—to follow her and ask her about the money.”
“Did you have any reason, other than what Mrs. Knesbit had told you, to believe that she was the thief?”
“I don’t really know her. She used to live in Settler Springs, but she’s been gone awhile. Her kids—”
Her kids didn’t have anything to do with this, and there was no reason to go off track with a tangent. “So, you saw her at six o’clock or so in the morning. How did you see her? It’s pretty dark that time of day in the morning.”
“Gobbler’s Knob has lots of spotlights so that we can see.”
“Did you meet up with her?”
Carmela shook her head. I was almost near her, but out of nowhere, this man came out in front of me and started running toward her. He had a purse that looked like Lyola Knesbit’s and I thought he might have stolen it. So, I went after him.”
“You chased someone you thought was a thief?” Carmela was no sprinter; she had a figure that would most kindly be described as sturdy.
“Lyola’s purse cost her two hundred and forty-five dollars,” Carmela explained. “She had just had it re-tanned. She carried it with her everywhere. If he had it, then he stole it.”
“It could have been someone else’s purse,” Troy pointed out.
Carmela shook her head. “No, it was Lyola’s. I recognized it.”
“There were twenty thousand people at this gig,” Troy said. “You’re sure that there was only one purse that looked like hers.”
“It was re-tanned,” she explained. “It was bright again. It was a beautiful purse. It cost her—”
“Two hundred forty-five dollars, yes. But why were you going after the man who had it?”
Carmela’s gaze showed incredulity. “How was Lyola going to pay for her hotel room, her food, any souvenirs she wanted to buy, if she didn’t have her money with her?”
He had to give Carmela credit, Troy realized. She wasn’t going to lose sight of the money.
“So, you were trying to catch up to Mia Shaw and in the meantime, you spotted this man and the purse that looked like it belonged to Mrs. Knesbit. So, you were trying to catch him.”
“Yes. He must have realized that I was following him because he suddenly turned around and saw me. I reached for the purse and he grabbed my hand. My glove came off. He started muttering rude comments and he was threatening me. He was . . . I was a little bit frightened. Then the crowd of people sort of swallowed him up and I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see Mia Shaw either. So, I went back across the bridge, back to Gobbler’s Knob.”
“With one glove missing.”
“Yes. And it was very cold,” she said. “I had to keep rubbing my hands together or risk getting frostbitten.”
“So, you went on watching the groundhog do his thing and then you all wandered around the town until it was time to go back to the bus. Did you see the man who had the purse?”
“No, and I didn’t see Mia Shaw either. I don’t even know if she came to the Inner Circle. It doesn’t make any sense to go all the way to Punxsutawney and not watch Phil see his shadow.”
A lot of things didn’t make sense to Troy, but that didn’t mean that they were important clues that would lead to the solving of the murder. He wondered what the police department in Punxsutawney had found out about the killing. Kelly had said there were a lot of state policemen on site because of the crowds. They wouldn’t have expected to be engaged in a murder investigation.
“Did you tell the police about seeing the man with the purse?” Troy asked.
Carmela didn’t answer.
“When he asked you questions. Kelly said that he talked to everyone on the bus. Did you tell him about the purse—”
“No!” she said. “I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just wanted to get home,” she said. “It was a terrible ending to what I’d been looking forward to. Lyola Knesbit wasn’t a friend but she wasn’t an enemy. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t want to be there any longer. I just wanted to get on the bus and get home. It was cold. It was dark by the time we finally left, and it was starting to snow. It was snowing a lot; they get a lot of snow up there. We’re supposed to get six more weeks of winter.” Carmela said forlornly. “Phil saw his shadow.”
7
Sleuthing Again
Kelly agreed to meet Troy for dinner during his break. Monday was her early day, so at five o’clock, she was waiting at The Café when he walked in.
