All Hallows Evil

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Well, I don’t need to see you now,” Charles Grace insisted. “In fact, the problem that I had, the one I needed you for, has gone away. So there’s really no reason for you to stay here. No reason on earth,” he repeated, looking stern.

  Susan was rather taken aback, but before she could think of anything to say, David Pratt solved her problem. “Perhaps you would like to stay for a bit? The library board’s meetings are open to the public. Although we don’t usually draw much of a crowd. Or even a solitary spectator. Maybe you’d like to be our first?”

  Susan would have melted from that charming smile if she had been susceptible; briefly she thought about Linda’s reaction to David. Then, returning to the subject at hand, she sat down in one of the chairs lining the walls, choosing to ignore the head librarian’s frown. “Thank you.” She smiled back at David.

  “We were trying to decide the question of a lawyer.” Charles Grace tried to get everyone’s attention back to the subject at hand. “And I believe I was speaking, Mr. Pratt.”

  Susan listened for a few minutes to the pros and cons of the library hiring its own lawyer versus using the one the city had on retainer. But it didn’t take long to see where the question was taking them. In fact, it quickly became apparent that the library had no funds for such an expense, and as the town’s lawyer was probably the best one for the job anyway … Susan thought that the board members around the table were just letting the librarian blow off some steam. She wondered if this happened often and then, watching the group, decided that it probably did. The board members looked as if they were becoming less and less tolerant as Charles Grace rambled on and on, making a point and then arguing against it. Susan suppressed a yawn. No wonder no one came to these meetings!

  Suddenly the door opened to reveal Amy Ellsworth, arms full of papers, purse open, glasses askew. “Sorry I’m late. I had to do some errands for Rebecca Armstrong. She’s staying in my neighborhood, you know, and I just don’t feel that I can refuse to help in any way possible.” Her concerned glance fell on Susan, and she had the grace to look embarrassed. “Of course, most of the work is falling in the lap of this woman.…”

  “I think we can talk about that later, can’t we?” Charles Grace interrupted impatiently.

  Susan worked her lips into what she hoped looked more like a smile than the hangover from recent dental work. Amy beamed at everyone in turn and sat down in the last empty seat at the table.

  “I have the notes of our last meeting with me if anyone wants to bother with that now.” She checked the expressions of her fellow committee members, but Susan noticed a lack of enthusiasm for the suggestion.

  “That will be completely unnecessary,” Charles Grace insisted. “This is, after all, an unscheduled meeting. I think we can be a little looser than we might be under ordinary circumstances.”

  “Good. So who has been taking notes?”

  “I’m afraid no one thought of that.” David broke the news of this oversight as gently as possible. “But I think the last hour or so can be summed up in a few words. Something like ‘a quorum of the board met on the morning of November first to deal with the possible legal problems connected with the death of an unknown man in the library the previous day, etc., etc.’ ”

  Charles Grace turned pale. “I can check this all out with you later, of course.”

  “Of course.” Amy, who had been writing furiously in an elegant leather-covered notebook, agreed to his suggestion, and the group got back down to business.

  Susan wanted to concentrate on the discussion this time, but it became more and more absurd. Amy’s late entrance offered Charles Grace the chance to reiterate all the points he had made previously. And while she took more notes than necessary, the remainder of the members of the committee either became irritable or dozed off. Susan was more than a little bored, and it would be more than a little impolite to get up and leave. If only she had been secretary of the group—then she could have made out a grocery list while pretending to take notes.

  The meeting was going on forever. Susan had given up hoping for an interruption when she remembered the instructions of the librarian at the desk, so she was surprised (all right, she’d admit it, she was thrilled) when a loud knock sounded on the door.

  She was even more surprised when it turned out that Marion was the intruder. She would have thought that the one person who would never ignore an order from Charles Grace had done just that.

  “I certainly hope there is a good reason for this interruption, Marion.” Susan didn’t have to be looking to know who had spoken.

  “That phone call. The one you’ve been waiting for. I thought you would want to know about it.” Marion seemed intimidated by her boss’s words. As he meant her to be, Susan thought, getting angry. She didn’t know who made her the maddest; Charles Grace for the way he treated her, or Marion Marshall for the way she accepted that treatment.

  Charles Grace stood up as his employee scurried from the room. “I suppose we’ll have to break this up now.…”

  “I really must speak with you.” Amy Ellsworth was busily gathering up pieces of paper that had fallen from her notebook as she spoke. Extraordinarily long nails hampered her at the task.

  “We can correct those minutes lat—”

  “About something much more important—and more urgent,” she insisted, picking up her notebook and hugging it to her chest. “It’s private, and I do have to get home soon,” she added as if Charles Grace had asked for some of her time instead of the other way around. “Maybe we could go to your office?” She walked out of the room, apparently assuming that she would be followed.

  Charles Grace glanced around, nodded at his committee members, and left.

  “Well, that was rather abrupt.” Susan leaned across the table to David Pratt. “I wonder what that phone call is about—he was so insistent that he not be interrupted.”

  David laughed and moved closer to her as the rest of the committee either made their ways to the door or spoke casually together. “You didn’t really believe that business with the phone call, did you? That’s one of the oldest business ploys in the world,” he added, seeing the surprised look on Susan’s face. “Charles Grace didn’t want the meeting to go on forever—he had, after all, made his point more than a half-dozen times—so he had ordered his secretary to interrupt with news of ‘an important call’ at a prearranged time. Everyone does it.”

  Susan didn’t bother to correct David’s impression of Marion’s job description. “I guess that’s why he didn’t rush right out to answer the phone.”

  David laughed. “Yeah. He’s not really all that good at big-business tactics, is he? Not that he would have to be in a place like this, I guess.”

  “No, this isn’t exactly IBM, is it?”

  “Sometimes you’d think it is, the way he acts.” David had lowered his voice before speaking.

  “Like what?”

  “Everything is a crisis. Take today, for instance. There was no real reason for this meeting. Charlie could have called us all up individually and made his point, but he loves to hear himself talk.”

  “I wonder why he called me,” Susan said. “I didn’t talk to him, but Jed said that he insisted it was urgent. I’m getting a little tired of this,” she added, then explained what had happened earlier in the day.

  “Interesting.”

  “Interesting?” Susan repeated, puzzled. “Why’s that?”

  “He’s calling meetings, worrying about lawyers, panicking.… It almost sounds like he doesn’t believe that the man who confessed is the killer. Well, think of it this way,” he added, seeing the puzzled look on Susan’s face. “If the man who confessed is convicted of the murders, that will be it. No one will have to look any further into all this, the library won’t be involved. But if it turns out that he didn’t do it, there’s going to be a full-scale investigation. Who knows what that will turn up.”

  “What … ?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered t
he question before she had a chance to ask it. “And I can’t imagine what there could be. After all, as we were just saying, this isn’t IBM. There’s this audit coming up, and no one has bothered to do anything about that. And no one is getting very excited about it if they do care.”

  Susan didn’t say anything, but she didn’t agree. Just because the reward looked insignificant didn’t mean it wasn’t of major importance to someone. David spent his time doing business deals; he might be surprised to discover the type of thing people would have—and have—murdered for. “You don’t have any idea what sort of skeletons are hidden in the library’s closet then?”

  “No. I try to steer clear of that type of stuff—internal personnel matters, petty likes and dislikes, professional jealousies.… Charles Grace asked me to join the board and help with the financial affairs of the library. And, let me tell you, with state, federal, and local funding regulations, tax matters, and the outstanding balance on the mortgage of this new building, I don’t have a lot of time left over to worry about all the rest.”

  “Who deals with that? The personnel matters and everything?” Susan persisted.

  “Everyone else on the board. You could ask Amy. She usually has her finger in everyone else’s pie.” He frowned. “She’s not necessarily all that reliable, though. She exaggerates. You know?”

  “I do. What about the librarians? Do you have much contact with them?”

  “None. And, having spent more than a few hours involved with their idea of bookkeeping, I can’t say that I want to.” He looked at his watch.

  “Don’t let me keep you,” Susan said quickly.

  He smiled. “Anything you want to find out about this place financially, just let me know.”

  “I will,” she assured him. They walked upstairs together and separated near the checkout desk. But she had something to do before leaving. Even if Charles Grace didn’t say what he had wanted to see her about, he was going to explain exactly why he couldn’t find the time to talk when he was the one who kept insisting on it. Susan opened the door and marched up the stairs to Charles Grace’s office.

  Her entrance might have been more effective if there had been anyone around to see it. As it turned out, she was more surprised than surprising. The room was a mess. Worse, she thought irrelevantly, than her son’s bedroom, and that took a lot of doing. What yesterday had been an orderly office now looked as if an invading army had moved through. Papers were strewn everywhere in such disorder that Susan checked to see if one of the windows had been left open. The drawers of file cabinets were ajar and more papers spilled out, books were strewn around, falling open in such a way that their spines were surely cracked or damaged. Susan was quickly losing any illusions she might have had about librarians. She glanced around one more time, turned, and walked back down the steps. There was nothing here for her. Except … She looked more closely at the mess on Charles Grace’s desk. Just what was her library card doing there?

  Susan did what she did next without thinking. The card was hers; she grabbed it, tucked it in the pocket of her jacket, and headed down the steps. And since it was hers, why was she so nervous and relieved that no one seemed to have noticed her presence in the old bell tower? She hurried out of the building and back to her car before looking at the card again. When she double-checked, it was indeed the card identifying her as a patron of the Hancock Public Library. The card was new. All cards had been reissued on the date of the dedication of the new building. The cards displayed each library user’s name, address, identification number, and magnetic code strip. They were decorated with an artist’s idea of how the new building would look once the recently planted blue spruce trees (thirty-five of them, each over three feet tall, one hundred and seventy-nine dollars apiece, planting extra) towered above the eaves.

  Susan placed the card from her pocket on the dashboard of the car and opened her purse. She pulled out her red wallet and glanced through the slots that held her credit and membership cards. It took only a few moments to be sure that this card was indeed hers and not a duplicate. She replaced everything and leaned back against the leather upholstery, staring at the small square of cardboard in front of her and biting her lip.

  There were a lot of explanations for this, she reminded herself. Probably she had left her card at the desk after checking out some books, and one of the librarians had put it away to give to her at a future date. Probably Charles Grace was going to return the card when he saw her this afternoon. That made sense and was the most likely explanation. Although there were others.

  The most ominous of the others was making Susan very nervous. What if, she asked herself, this card had been in her wallet where it belonged until yesterday afternoon? What if it had been removed from her wallet when her purse was stolen at the Armstrong house? What if her purse had been stolen just so someone had access to her library card? The thought was so absurd that she couldn’t continue. But it led to a more likely explanation. Maybe the mugger had gone through her wallet, had accidentally gotten her library card in with his or her own things and then, today, had tried to use it to check out books. Realizing that it wasn’t his or her card …

  It was pointless. Too much speculation and no facts. Susan was startled out of her reverie by a loud knock on her window.

  “Hey, open up! We’re freezing out here!”

  Susan popped a button to release the automatic door lock, and Kathleen and Bananas slid into the front seat. “I forgot his hat, and it’s getting colder. His poor little ears are starting to turn red.” Kathleen explained her anxiety. Bananas, apparently unaware of any possible damage to his extremities, burped happily, said, “hi yo,”—his standard greeting to all, near and dear and stranger alike—then popped the thumb of one of his mittens into his mouth. His mother patted him fondly. “What do you think about the identity of the first victim? It’s something of a surprise, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t what?”

  “That he worked at the same network as Jason and Rebecca …”

  “I didn’t know that! Who was he? What did he do?”

  “I don’t know his name. He worked in the public relations department.”

  Susan briefly considered the crowd in her living room for the past twenty-four hours. There were more of them? Just how large was the public relations department? “Who told you all this? And why don’t you know his name?”

  “One of the librarians … a Marion Marshall … told me that the victim had been identified by his prints this morning. She didn’t remember his name, but she said that he had worked for the network until about a year ago. Then he joined a firm of public relations consultants.”

  “So he left the network before Jason went on the air?”

  “Yes. Although he spent the last few years working very closely with the staff of ‘This Morning, Every Morning.’ ”

  “He would know Rebecca.”

  “Probably.”

  “But she didn’t recognize him yesterday morning.”

  “Really? Are you sure she saw the body?”

  That made Susan pause. “No,” she admitted, “I have no idea at all whether or not she saw the body. Let me think.… I don’t remember seeing her around when I was in the stacks. In fact, I was pretty upset and not noticing anything, so I don’t think I would have seen her if she hadn’t spoken to me. And we weren’t anywhere near the body then. We were by the refreshment table in that area with all the couches.”

  “That’s a really nice feature in the design of the new building. Very luxurious,” Kathleen mused. “Why did you leave the scene of the murder?” she asked, returning to the subject.

  “Oh, well, the police came, and their men started examining the body, taking pictures, that type of thing, so everyone was asked to gather in one area. There was food left over from the Halloween party in the children’s library, and it was brought up and put out on a long table there. That’s when Rebecca spoke to me.”

  “And you’d never talked with her before?”
>
  “Never. The only other time I’d seen her in person was at that party a few weeks ago. In fact, I haven’t watched TV in the morning since I was nursing Chad, and she wasn’t on that long ago. I keep thinking the conversation is going to get around to her work, and I’m going to have to say something intelligent and …” She paused. “And I’m going to have nothing to say—not that we talk that much.”

  “Why not? She is living in your house,” Kathleen said, rearranging her son’s weight in her lap as he had fallen asleep.

  “She’s always surrounded by those men. And I always seem to be out doing errands for her.” She turned and looked Kathleen straight in the eye. “Nothing about this setup makes much sense to me,” Susan said.

  “I can’t disagree with you,” Kathleen said. “But maybe once you’ve figured out exactly why Rebecca Armstrong wanted to stay with you, you’ll understand a little more about what is really going on here.”

  EIGHT

  Susan could have returned to the library and tried to speak with Marion Marshall. She should have gone to the grocery store and shopped for dinner. Instead she drove home, walked through her front door into her living room and, ignoring the irritated stares of those working there, she insisted upon speaking to Rebecca Armstrong. Immediately. And privately.

  “That’s an excellent idea. Just let me dash upstairs and change, then we can talk,” Rebecca agreed, rising to her feet.

  Susan was so surprised at this response that she didn’t question the other woman’s apparent need to dress for the interview. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she called up the stairs after her guest, and hurried from the room before anyone suggested that she turn on the Mr. Coffee. She had expected to find her kitchen a mess, but, although a quick look revealed empty coffee canisters and a dishwasher full of mugs, cups, and saucers, every counter had been wiped clean and everything else put in its place. Susan was wondering what a glance in her freezer might suggest for dinner when Rebecca reappeared.