Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 05 - Just Ducky (8 page)

“True,” Wendy agreed.

“Still, I’m having trouble accepting her death as a suicide. If it was, she did one hell of a brilliant job of acting when she discussed her future with me. I’m not going to let this drop until I delve into it a little deeper.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Wendy said, with a long drawn-out sigh of dismay. “Mom, please don’t get involved in this incident. The detectives will thoroughly go through every little detail and come up with a conclusive answer. They’ll be able to come to a qualified and accurate determination about what occurred last night in the library, I promise you.”

“We’ll see,” was my short reply. I could hear my daughter groaning in exasperation as I hung up the phone.

* * *

After a restless night, I got up early the next morning and joined Stone in the kitchen for coffee. He was always up and about at the crack of dawn, and usually had the paper read before I even woke up. He stayed just long enough to ask how I was doing, and then went upstairs to do some measuring for his remodeling project.

I flipped through the paper, not really concentrating on anything I read, and finished off three cups of coffee. I read the front-page article about Ducky’s “suicide” several times and found nothing of significance in it. I then spent the next couple of hours dusting every horizontal surface in the entire inn. The floors needing vacuuming, too, but I wanted to make sure I could hear the phone when it rang. So instead, I scrubbed every toilet in the place with a bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner solution, ruining my sweatshirt and favorite pair of jeans in the process. They now had little white blotches where the solution had splashed on them and bleached out the fabric. Once the toilets were sparkling, I started in the kitchen washing the windows, and proceeded through the inn, room by room, until there wasn’t one streak on any glass surface, including the bathroom mirrors.

Exhausted, I poured myself another much-needed cup of coffee, and sat down at the table while coating chicken breasts and thighs to fry later on for supper. I was rinsing blood off my index finger, from a self-inflicted paring knife wound, when the phone finally rang at about ten-thirty.

“Hello,” I said breathlessly into the handset, after seeing Wendy’s number on the caller I.D. monitor.

“I was right, Mom. Nothing on the tox screen report to indicate Ducky had anything unusual in her system. Nate has signed the death certificate and put down ‘suicide’ as the C.O.D.”

“I’m shocked, and somewhat disappointed to hear that, I must say.”

“I knew you would be, but that’s the way it is. I’m sorry. I know how badly you didn’t want to believe Ducky could kill herself,” Wendy said.

“I still can’t honestly say I’m totally convinced, but I do appreciate you calling me with the results. Say, did you by chance read the suicide note?”

“No, I just heard the gist of it.”

“Do you know where it is now?”

“I’d assume the police department has it.”

“Okay, just curious,” I said.

“Uh—huh. I’m sure that’s all there is to it. You do know what curiosity did to the damned cat, don’t you, Mom?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’ll let you get back to work now, and talk to you later.” I hung up before Wendy could climb up on her soapbox and start lecturing me about the hazards of my doing a little investigating on my own, as she was prone to do. I quickly picked the phone back up, and waited for a dial tone, before punching in Wyatt’s cell phone number. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the detective, I got around to why I’d placed the call in the first place.

“While I have you on the line, Wyatt, do you have access to Ducky’s suicide note?”

“I think Detective Travis has the note on his desk. He was just finishing up the paperwork on yesterday’s 9-1-1 call. Why do you ask?”

“I was just hoping to get an opportunity to read it. I don’t think I can let it go without reading it, and trying to come to grips with Ducky’s reasoning, in her own words, for ending her life.”

“And that’s all there is to it?” He asked, with a hint of mistrust in his voice.

“Of course,” I replied. Wyatt was known to get on that exact same soapbox as Wendy, and Stone, for that matter, so I tried to cut him off at the quick. “I’m not sure I like Detective Travis very much. He was quite rude and insensitive while questioning me yesterday. What’s your impression of him? I know you haven’t had the opportunity to work with him yet.”

Wyatt nodded, before replying. “Well, Clint seems very driven and anxious to succeed, but also very introspective. He doesn’t interact much with the other officers, but he doesn’t know any of us well yet, either. So really, I have very little to base an opinion on so far. He probably was just uptight because it was the first fatality case he’d been involved in.”

“Oh, okay. That makes sense,” I said. Actually, it made very little sense to me. The new officer hadn’t seemed uptight or upset about Ducky’s death, but more as if he were totally unaffected by it. He seemed concerned about something, but it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the librarian’s death, I was pretty sure. I was about to drop the subject and ring off, when Wyatt’s next words stopped me.

“I’ll see if I can make you a Xerox copy of the note and drop it by later after my shift. I guess letting you read the note can’t bring any harm to you, and maybe you’ll feel more assured after you’ve seen it with your own eyes.”

“Thanks, Wyatt. It might be best if you didn’t tell Detective Travis who you’re making a copy of it for. I got the impression he didn’t care for me any more than I did for him.”

“I don’t know how Clint could dislike you, or hold any bias against you at all, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll just make the copy when he’s out on patrol.”

“Thanks, Wyatt. I appreciate it.”

* * *

It was early in the evening when Wyatt walked in the back door and sat down at the kitchen table. I turned the burner off from under the frying pan so the chicken wouldn’t burn while I visited with the detective.

“Would you like a cup of coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot,” I said.

“Sure, why not? What’s one more hit of caffeine? Since I’ve started visiting you here at the inn almost every day, I’ve gotten very little sleep. Why in the world would I want to start now?”

While I was getting a clean coffee cup out of the dishwasher, Stone joined us in the kitchen, so I snatched another cup off the top rack and closed the door. I placed the cream and sugar decanters in front of Wyatt, and then set down the full coffee cups. Before I sat down myself, I placed a plate of snickerdoodles in the middle of the table, knowing Wyatt liked sweet treats with his coffee, and Stone could never resist a cookie either.

Stone shot Wyatt a look of disapproval after the detective had placed a piece of typing paper in front of me and said, “Here’s the Xerox copy of Ducky’s suicide note that you requested.”

“Does Detective Travis know you got this for me?”

“No, he was out on a call, I’d guess. I haven’t seen him all afternoon,” Wyatt said.

“Do you really have to encourage Lexie?” Stone asked Wyatt. “I can already see where her interest in this situation is heading.”

“Well, it’s no longer an open case, Stone. It’s more of a cut, dried, and closed case of suicide. I didn’t really see what harm could come of Lexie reading the suicide note, and I can understand her interest in it.”

“Okay, I just had a bad feeling about it. My intuition regarding Lexie’s intentions has always been pretty spot-on, so I am probably just over-reacting,” Stone said.

For Stone’s benefit, I read the note aloud.

“
To Whom it May Concern. I have willingly made the choice to end my life because I can’t seem to accept the idea of a life without a job to go to every day. Spending endless hours doing nothing with Quentin is not my idea of contentment, although this is not the fault of my husband in any way. It’s just something in me that can’t stand the idea of too much idle time. I’d like to express my love for Quentin, my daughter, and, of course, my beautiful grandchildren, Marissa and Bernie, and I apologize for the fact I’ll no longer be a part of their lives. I’m afraid I’d be so adversely affected by the idea of being retired that I wouldn’t be very good company to any of them, anyway. I never have dealt well with change, and know I couldn’t cope with what would have been the biggest change ever in my life. Please forgive me for taking the cowardly way out.

Sincerely, Bertha Duckworthy.”

There were tears running down my cheeks by the time I’d finished reading the note I held in my trembling hand. Nothing about it rang true to me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling this wasn’t a note Ducky would have contrived, but it tugged at my heartstrings, nonetheless. There was something else about it that troubled me, but I couldn’t put a finger on it at the time. All I could do was shrug my shoulders, and thank Wyatt for getting me a copy of it to read.

I knew I needed to get back to preparing supper, to have it ready to serve on time, so I went back to the stove. I turned chicken breasts and thighs in the sizzling skillet in silence, sipping at my coffee occasionally, as Stone and Wyatt discussed Stone’s renovation plans for the inn. My mind was a thousand miles away from schedule forty galvanized pipe, and the advantages of low-water flush toilets. I was startled when I felt Wyatt’s hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks for the coffee and cookies, Lexie. Delicious as usual. I hope seeing the note for yourself will help you accept Ducky’s death. I don’t want it to eat at you, because that kind of stress can adversely affect your health, and there’s nothing you can do about it, anyway.”

“I know. But I do appreciate you bringing the copy of the note over for me. There’s something about her note that’s bothering me, but it’s probably just my mind playing tricks on me, due to the tragic nature of the whole thing. Thanks again, and we’ll see you later,” I said.

Supper was a subdued affair. I didn’t feel very talkative, and Stone and the Spurleys seemed to sense my melancholy, keeping the conversation to a minimum.

I went to bed shortly after cleaning up the kitchen. I lay awake most of the night with the words of Ducky’s note reverberating in my mind. I finally drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning, dreaming about working at the Rockdale Public Library, once it was allowed to re-open. I saw myself checking out books to patrons, helping people find the novel they were searching for, going to the bathroom anytime I felt like it, and typing out requisition forms…

Chapter 6

“That’s it!” I said out loud as I sat up in bed around four in the morning.

Stone turned over in alarm, awakened by my exclamation. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m sorry I woke you,” I said, apologetically. “But I was just dreaming about filling out requisition forms at the library and it hit me what it was about Ducky’s suicide note that was bothering me.”

“What’s that?” Stone asked, with a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“It was the names!”

“The what?”

“The names in the suicide note,” I said.

“What are you talking about, honey?”

“Well, for example, Ducky mentioned her husband by name!”

“And you think that confirms she couldn’t possibly have killed herself?” Exasperation was clearly more evident in his voice now.

“Yes! You see, her husband’s name is Quentin!”

“Okay, and that is important because…” Now the exasperation dripped off every word he spoke. Stone was clearing losing patience with me and wondering why I’d woken him from a deep sleep.

“The keyboard on Ducky’s computer is faulty. The ‘B’ key, as in Bertha, sticks and often has to be pressed numerous times to work, and the ‘Q’ key, as in Quentin, doesn’t work at all, and hasn’t worked in over two months. Ducky couldn’t have keyed in that note on the computer at her desk!”

“Aren’t there other computers there for library patrons to use?”

“She had turned off the computers, and shut out the lights in the computer lab before I left. I can’t see her doing that if she intended to go back in there and type out a suicide note a few minutes later. I can’t really see her using any of those computers, anyway. Despite the problems with the keyboard, I think she probably always used the computer on her desk, no matter what she was working on,” I explained.