Books Can Be Deceiving (15 page)

A large glass table dominated the room, and seven padded chairs on casters circled it as if awaiting a meal. There was a small cabinet along the back wall, which is where Lindsey stored the board’s snacks and beverages. She flicked on the lights and began to set up.

The lights in the main part of the library turned on automatically, and Lindsey poked her head out the door to be sure her staff had all arrived and were preparing to open. She could see Beth at the children’s desk, Ms. Cole was tending the circulation desk, two of their senior volunteers were wheeling a book truck to the book drop to empty the night’s haul, and Jessica Gallo, another part-time library assistant, was staffing the reference desk. All was calm on the library front.

Milton was the first to arrive for the board meeting. Always early, he offered to finish brewing the coffee while Lindsey went to print the agenda.

On her way to the office, she said hello to Ms. Cole and was greeted with a grunt of unhappiness. The lemon looked to have her full pucker on today. Given the weekend she had just had, Lindsey was not in the mood.

She stopped short and spun on Ms. Cole. “Is there a problem?”

Ms. Cole raised her eyebrows in surprise and her lips thinned. “Of course not.”

“Then I would appreciate a civil greeting in the morning,” Lindsey said. “And I’m sure the rest of the staff would as well.”

Ms. Cole stared at her without blinking and then turned back to her computer without saying a word. For a nanosecond, Lindsey was overcome with a sudden and violent urge to howl like a dog at the moon. Luckily, it passed.

“I will assume from your silence that you agree,” Lindsey said. Feeling validated that she’d gotten the last word, again, she continued on to her office to pick up her notebook and paperwork for the meeting.

When she got back to the room, four of the five board members were in attendance, as was Herb Gunderson the liaison from the mayor’s office. The fifth board member, Doug Dowd was away on a cruise, so the group had agreed to go on without him.

Milton had taken his seat as chairman at the head of the table. Lindsey handed out the copies of the agenda while he called the meeting to order. The agenda was called to be approved by Lydia Wilcox, a retired teacher, and was seconded by Earl Longren, who owned the general store, and Carole Towles. As they moved on to the first items, Lindsey glanced out the window and saw Sydney Carlisle in a small white compact car with a rental sticker on the back, stopped at the stop sign in front of the library.

Sydney’s pale hair was again up in a twist, and she was talking on her cell phone while she sat there. She looked every bit the New Yorker, which explained the rental car. Most New Yorkers didn’t bother to own cars since they really served no purpose in the city. An older couple was in the crosswalk making their way to the library, and Sydney honked at them when they didn’t move fast enough.

As they gave her outraged looks and picked up their pace, Sydney squealed past them, leaving behind some skid marks and blue exhaust.

“Lindsey?” Milton said her name, and she turned toward him. From the way everyone was looking at her, she thought he’d probably called her name more than once.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just worried that car was going to hit two of our patrons.”

“Tourists,” Lydia said. “Can’t live with them; can’t shoot them.”

Earl laughed, and Lydia grinned. Herb, the mayor’s liaison officer looked ready to chastise them, but Milton turned to Lindsey and said, “We’re ready for your report.”

Lindsey shuffled the papers in her lap. She passed out copies of her monthly library report and then glanced at the bullet points on her own copy. She was more than a little relieved that she’d gotten this done early last week.

“Okay then,” she began. “Let’s start with our circulation and program statistics, and I have some suggestions from our patrons to share . . .”

The door to the meeting room was abruptly flung open, and in strode a buxom woman in a tight skirt and silk blouse with a cameraman tailing behind her.

“Mrs. Norse,” the reporter spoke into her microphone. “I have a few questions for you.”

She strode right up to Lydia Wilcox and shoved the mic in her face. Lydia was pushing seventy, had silver hair and reading glasses and dressed in what Lindsey thought of as Connecticut genteel; in other words, she looked like Kate Hepburn in her later years in tailored slacks and turtlenecks with a sweater tied over her shoulders.

Lydia had taught high school English for thirty-five years. She was smart, sassy and did not suffer fools gladly.

“If you want to be taken seriously as a journalist,” she said as she gave the young woman a scathing once-over, “you should do more with the pair on your face and less with the pair on your chest.”

The girl tilted her head like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. She didn’t get it.

“I’m not Mrs. Norse,” Lydia snapped. “There is no Mrs. Norse; rather, it is Ms. Norris.”

“But you look like a librarian,” the reporter insisted.

Lydia huffed, giving the girl a disgusted look.

“I motion that we adjourn the meeting until we figure out what Miss . . .” Milton paused and stared at the reporter until she smiled and gave her name. “Oh, I’m Kili, like the fruit but with an
l
instead of a
w
, Peters.”

“What Ms. Peters wants,” Milton said. He spoke so politely, you’d have to know him very well to know he was irritated. Lindsey was pleased that she could tell.

“I’m Ms. Norris,” Lindsey said as she rose from her seat. “How can I help you?”

“You’re awfully young to be a librarian,” Kili said.

“You don’t go to libraries very much, do you?” Carole asked. Like Milton, you wouldn’t be able to tell Carole was irked, unless you knew her. By the flash of Carole’s light-green eyes, Lindsey hoped Kili was wearing flameretardant clothing.

“Never,” Kili said.

“What a surprise,” Carole replied.

Lindsey heard Lydia snort behind her but didn’t dare look at her for fear she’d burst out laughing, too.

“We’re on a time crunch here, Kili,” the cameraman said.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Start rolling; we’ll edit later.”

“Fine,” he said. A red light went on above the camera lens, which was pointed at Lindsey and Kili.

“This is Kili Peters reporting from Briar Creek. I’m here with the town librarian Lindsey Norse, er, Norris. Ms. Norris, what are your thoughts on your employee Beth Stanley?”

“Excuse me?” Lindsey asked.

“Did you have any idea she would become the suspect in the murder of her former lover Rick Eckman?”

“Suspect?”

“Do you have any plans to put her on suspension? A violent criminal working in the sanctity of a library, after all, would put the public at risk, wouldn’t it?”

“Are you insane?” Lindsey asked.

“Is that a risk you’re prepared to take?”

Now the mic was thrust into Lindsey’s face, and she had to curb the urge to wrestle Kili to the ground and stomp on her mic until it was just useless bits of plastic and wires.

“I think you need to leave now,” Lindsey said.

She took Kili by the elbow and forcibly pushed her through the meeting-room door. The cameraman was forced to back up or be stepped on.

But Kili wasn’t done yet. She wrenched her arm out of Lindsey’s grasp and approached a young mother with her toddler.

“Ma’am, are you prepared to have a murder suspect reading to your baby?” she asked and thrust the mic into the woman’s face.

“What?” The woman pulled her child away from Kili.

“The children’s librarian, Beth Stanley, is suspected of murdering her fiancé, and the library isn’t going to do anything to stop her from having access to your precious babies. How does that make you feel?”

“Well, I . . .” the mother looked at Lindsey in confusion. “Is this true?”

“No,” Lindsey said. “It’s a gross misrepresentation of anything even resembling the truth.”

“Then you didn’t spend all day at the police station on Saturday being questioned about your friend’s role in the murder of the famous children’s book author Rick Eckman?”

Lindsey felt a growl start down low and deep. Who had told her all of this? She glanced up and saw Ms. Cole watching from the circulation desk with a very self-satisfied smile.

“Milton, could you escort Ms. Peters and her cameraman out?”

“You can’t do this,” Kili protested. “The public has a right to know.”

“You know, you seem to be lacking the proper paperwork for filming in a municipal building,” Lindsey said. “How unfortunate.”

“If you’ll follow me, please.” Milton gripped her elbow in a viselike grip, and Kili was forced to scurry on tippytoes to keep up with him.

Once the door shut behind them, Lindsey turned back to the board, still standing with their mouths agape, and said, “If you’ll excuse me.”

She noted that the mother with the child had left the building in Kili’s wake, which made Lindsey so mad she could have chewed nails.

She found Beth in her office packing up a brown cardboard box full of her things. The box screamed “quitting” and tuned out all other thoughts in Lindsey’s head.

“Beth, don’t . . .” Lindsey began, but Beth interrupted her with a shake of her head.

“It’s better this way,” she said. “If I quit, then you don’t have to fire me. It’ll look better when I search for another job.”

“You’re not quitting, and I’m not firing you!” Lindsey said. “This is ridiculous.”

Beth just stared at her. “This isn’t going to go away.”

“You’re the best children’s librarian in the state,” Lindsey protested. “I won’t let you just walk away from all you’ve done here. You’ve developed an early years literacy program that has become the national model.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest, but Milton appeared in the doorway and cut her off. “Lindsey is right. There is no way Briar Creek is going to let you go.”

Lindsey turned and gave him a grateful smile. She knew if they ganged up on her, Beth would buckle.

“That being said,” Milton continued, “I do think you should take some time off.”

Lindsey opened her mouth to disagree. She didn’t like the idea of Beth being alone and unoccupied.

Milton held up his hand and said, “You have suffered a terrible loss. Even though you and Rick had parted ways, you still spent five years with him. Finding him like you did, well, you can’t just ignore it or all of the emotion that comes with it. If you do, it’ll just bite you in the backside when you’re not looking.”

“I know.” Beth’s head sagged, and Milton crossed the room and looped an arm about her shoulders.

“I have the number of a friend of mine who specializes in grief. He got me through the worst of losing Anna, and I want you to call him,” Milton said. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks, Milton,” Lindsey said. She stepped forward and took Beth’s hands in hers. “I’ll call you later.”

She watched them leave through the back door and hurried back to the meeting room. Carole was the only one left, and she was busily cleaning up the snacks and drinks.

“Since Milton adjourned the meeting, we figured we’d better postpone until next week to deal with all of this.”

“Sounds good. I’ll send out an email to confirm,” Lindsey said as she sank into a chair. It was funny how none of her classes in library science had prepared her for this sort of thing, dead bodies, staff under suspicion, crazed reporters. Really, they needed to consider expanding the curriculum.

After a couple of deep breaths, she got up from her chair and started to help Carole clean. A knock at the door brought her attention around. The lemon was standing there, looking even more pleased than before, and Lindsey knew it was because she considered Lindsey’s reign as director to be crashing and burning in the current chaos.

“Ms. Norris, you have a room full of mothers and babies waiting for story time.”

“Excuse me?” Lindsey asked.

“Story time,” Ms. Cole said. “Should I tell them that Ms. Stanley has walked out and there will be no story time today?”

“No,” Lindsey said.

She looked at Carole, who smiled at her encouragingly.

“You can do it, Lindsey,” she said. “This is what public librarianship is all about.”

Lindsey glanced back at Ms. Cole, who looked annoyingly triumphant. For a moment, she considered having Ms. Cole do story time, but she didn’t want to be responsible for any psychological damage done to the babies.

“Please tell them I’ll be right there,” Lindsey said.

Carole nodded approvingly. “Good for you.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a choice, do I?”

“Y
ou might have mentioned that one of the Wilson twins always sits in your lap,” Lindsey said.

“Oh, well, generally it’s the one who has just been productive in his diaper. Usually, you can smell him coming,” Beth said. “I’ve found it’s best to mouth breathe during the stories.”

Lindsey lifted the ice pack off of the bump on her forehead and gave Beth another hard stare. “Again, information I could have used.”

Beth ducked her head, and Lindsey was pleased to see a smile twitch her lips. They were crashed on the love seats in front of Beth’s fireplace, sharing a meatball sub and a bottle of red wine. She had stopped by on her way home to check on Beth, and she was happy if her disastrous story time gave her friend something to smile about.

“So, I’m still not sure how you smacked your head on the puppet theater,” Beth said.

“It was the hokey pokey. The heel on my shoe broke in the middle of putting my right foot in, and to avoid flattening little Emma Jacobs, I had to twist my body, which made my forehead connect with the corner of the puppet theater.”

Now Beth’s shoulders were shaking. Encouraged, Lindsey continued, “Of course, when the puppet theater went down, we were all worried that it was going to take the entire picture book section with it. Milton took one for the team there and dove in front of it.”