The Chocolate Book Bandit (3 page)

After twenty minutes I had concluded that Carol’s assessment of the board was right; they didn’t do much.

Actually, there was not much need for them to take action. The staff and building expenses for the library were paid by the Village of Warner Pier. The city council, for example, had officially hired the new director. The board merely advised on programs and operations. They were more citizen representatives than officials.

Butch Cassidy didn’t suggest any revolutionary changes at his first meeting. His report didn’t draw much reaction until he got to the final item.

“I found a request for a change in hours among the director’s files,” he said. “I was surprised to learn that the Warner Pier Public Library has never been open on Sundays.”

“The previous director didn’t recommend that,” Rhonda said.

“In August a group of students requested that the library be open Sunday afternoons during the school year. This seems to be a reasonable request, and I’ve—”

“Humph!” The syllable exploded from Miss Vanderklomp’s lips. “Think carefully, Mr. Cassidy! That might be a dangerous precedent!”

Butch looked surprised. Then he frowned. “But it’s standard practice—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Before he could say another word, an enormous shriek echoed through the building.

We all reacted. I jumped up and headed for the door. Gwen’s baby joined the clamor. The front legs of Dr. Cornwall’s chair hit the floor with a crash. Carol yelled out. “What’s that? What! What!”

I was the first person out, because I’d been nearest the door. The noise was coming from across the main room. Peering between the stacks, I saw Betty Blake, the clerk who’d been checking out books, running toward the front of the building.

I scurried after her. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“Help! Call 9-1-1!”

“What’s happened?”

“I think it’s Abigail! Abigail Montgomery! She’s in a heap at the bottom of the basement stairs. She’s not breathing!”

She cried out again. “She’s dead! She’s dead! Call someone!”

There was a mad rush to the tiny back hall and then to the basement door. Since I’d been the first one out of the room, I was the first one down the stairs, and Butch was right behind me. The others hovered at the top of the steps.

The light was poor, but when Butch and I knelt over Abigail Montgomery, I felt sure she was dead. She was lying on her stomach, with her head turned slightly to the side. Blood from a wound on the back of her head had made a puddle on the floor. I couldn’t find a pulse, and when Butch held a scrap of paper in front of her nose, it didn’t give a quiver. She wasn’t breathing.

“She’s gone,” Butch said.

He called out to the group at the top of the stairs. “Please go back to the boardroom. I’ll call 9-1-1 on my cell phone. Then I’ll wait for the EMTs at the front door.”

Everybody moved back except Miss Vanderklomp. She came down two steps and growled a comment. “It doesn’t seem right to leave her alone.”

Butch went up the stairs and edged past her. “I think it will be okay.”

“I feel that someone should stay with her.”

The darn woman was bossing just for the sake of bossing. I felt really annoyed.

“It’s all right, Miss Vanderklomp,” I said. I spoke as firmly as I could, considering that my insides were sloshing around like Lake Michigan on a windy day. “I’ll stay here.”

I followed Butch partway up the stairs and sat down, firmly planting my fanny on a step, then spreading my arms and legs out so that Miss Vanderklomp would have to jump over me if she tried to come farther.

“I could stay,” she said.

“Oh, I have completed first-aid training,” I said.

Which was true, but had nothing to do with anything. First aid was not going to help Abigail Montgomery.

The comment did make Miss Vanderklomp pause, although she was still lingering on the step, frowning.

“Plus,” I said, “I’m sure you know the chief of police is married to my aunt.”

That shut her up, even though that circumstance also had nothing to do with anything. She sniffed irately and went back upstairs. At least she left the door open. I didn’t want to be down there alone with what had been Abigail.

Not that I was deeply grieved. In fact, although Abigail Montgomery had been pointed out to me, I didn’t think I had ever spoken with her. My impression was that she led a rather reclusive life. I racked my brain, trying to remember what I knew or had heard about her.

Abigail was a member of a fairly prominent family in Warner Pier. They had also been prominent in both Michigan state affairs and in Chicago. They had “cottaged” in Warner Pier since forever, and Abigail was one of those summer people who had come to live in Warner Pier after she retired, moving to a home she and her husband had built years earlier at the family compound.

Abigail’s maiden name had been Hart, and the Hart family had a few skeletons in their closets that I already knew about. Her brother, Timothy Hart, is one of the sweetest men I know—he helped save my life once upon a time—but he’s a chronic alcoholic. Her sister . . . Well, the less said about her sister, the better. Her brother-in-law had a strange life, as well as a strange death. However, her nephew, Hart VanHorn, is a former Michigan state legislator who is now a leading lawyer in Grand Rapids, and as far as I know is a perfectly nice guy.

I knew nothing about Mr. Montgomery, whomever he had been, but Abigail had lived in California for many years. I had a vague impression, drawn from Warner Pier gossip, that she had moved back to the family compound for financial reasons. She’d been a year-round resident for three or four years, and since my father-in-law is the mayor, I happened to hear that Hart called him and asked him to find his aunt some sort of committee to serve on. “She needs to get out more,” her nephew said, “and she could make a genuine contribution to the community.” “She’s incredibly shy,” Hart had said, but she’s an intelligent and well-read woman.”

“Well read.” Aha. Mike had named her to the library board, and she had served two years. Abigail was declining a second term because she’d developed health problems.

I rapidly reviewed this information as I waited for the EMTs. But nothing that I had ever heard about Abigail Montgomery told me what I’d really like to know: What the heck had she been doing falling down the basement stairs in the Warner Pier Public Library when she should have been up in the meeting room?

I looked around that basement. Only the area around the bottom of the stairs was illuminated. A bare bulb swung above my head, but the light it gave left parts of the room too glary and other parts too shadowy. The basement extended off into the dim, dark recesses of the building. I guessed that it was the same size as the upstairs, but I certainly couldn’t tell for sure.

What I could see were bare wooden stairs—the kind with empty space between the treads—and I was sitting on those. There were heaps of boxes, tables loaded with books, and an old rack that must have once held newspapers. The area was cool, too, and the air had a damp, cellarlike feeling.

By the time I heard heavy footsteps thumping over my head and realized that Authority of some sort had arrived, I was definitely ready to get out of that basement. But, of course, I couldn’t. Butch and the Warner Pier PD’s night patrolman came down the stairs, and I couldn’t get past them. Instead I had to get up and move farther into the basement to let them in. The EMT crew was right behind them. I had to move even farther into the basement to let that group have room. So I wound up standing about twenty feet away, behind a table, while all the men blocked the steps that would have allowed me to escape. There was nothing I could do but wait.

And look around. I admit I did that. I didn’t want to watch the undignified things that were being done to Abigail, so I looked elsewhere.

After my eyes adjusted to the dark I did find another hanging lightbulb, the kind with a pull chain. So I pulled it on. That illuminated a new area of the spooky basement. Not that there was much to see. It was more of the same. Broken chairs, a heap of boards that might once have been a bookshelf, and stacks of old books.

The most interesting item was that old rack that had once held newspapers. People younger than I am might never have seen one, now that library patrons access old newspapers by computer. But when my grandmother took the five-year-old me to the children’s story hour at the library back in Prairie Creek, Texas, that library had a special rack for newspapers.

It’s hard to describe; the only thing similar I’ve ever seen might be a folding drying rack. Wooden sticks hung on staggered pegs, and newspapers hung on the sticks. They were staggered so that the newspapers in front wouldn’t block access to the newspapers in back. The back of the rack stood about five feet from the floor, and the front row of pegs about three feet. The wooden rods had some sort of clamps or slots to hold the newspapers.

The racks I had grown up with had metal rods, but this rack had wooden rods to hold each type of newspaper. There were a half dozen sets of pegs to hold the rods. The rack had probably once held recent issues of the
Warner Pier Weekly Gazette
, the
Holland Sentinel
, the
Grand Rapids Press
, and the
Chicago Tribune
. Probably the
Chicago Sun
, too, back then, when major cities had more than one daily.

Because I didn’t want to think about the work going on with Abigail, I found myself wondering whether the library had originally bought the rack secondhand. The wooden rods were surely older than the metal rods I remembered.

Five empty wooden rods were lined up on the old rack, but one set of pegs was empty. Then I saw the extra rod. It was on the floor between me and the group of emergency workers kneeling near the stairs.

I went over and picked it up. The basement was a mess, but at least I could do one little thing to neaten it up.

As I turned toward the rack, something on the wooden rod I was holding caught my eye. Hair. A clump of hair was sticking to the thick end of the rod. That seemed odd. I pulled it close to my eyes, trying to see it in the harsh light. And I saw that a crack ran down one side of the rod, a crack that wasn’t supposed to be there.

At that moment Hogan Jones came in. My aunt’s husband. Warner Pier police chief. An experienced detective from a big city who had moved to Warner Pier and taken on the job of police chief as a retirement activity.

Hogan stopped about halfway down the stairs and spoke to the EMTs. “Accident?”

One of the EMTs stood up. “I don’t know, Hogan. She seems to have fallen forward, but there’s a depression at the base of her skull. To tell you the truth—and I’m no expert—I think you’ll want an autopsy. It looks like the traditional blunt instrument to me.”

I took one more look at the wooden rod I was holding. Hair. It had hair on it. And it had a crack running down the side. As if it had hit something. Hard. Suddenly it seemed to be burning hot. I dropped it back on the basement floor, and it made quite a clatter. Everyone stared at me.

I looked at Hogan, then at the rod. Could the long wooden piece be a murder weapon? It wasn’t very big around, nothing like a baseball bat. I looked back at Hogan and put my hands behind my back, like a naughty child caught at the cookie jar. Then I pulled them out and gestured toward the rod. The EMTs, the police, even Butch—all of them were still staring at me.

“Sorry to make such a clobber—I mean, a clatter!” I said. “I just realized that stick has a long crack down the side. And it seems to have hair on it. And maybe . . . something else.”

Every jaw in the room dropped. Except Hogan’s. The dadgum man never loses his aplomb.

“Lee,” he said, “what are you doing hanging around a crime scene?”

“Hogan, I didn’t know it was a crime scene until”—I gestured toward the EMT who had spoken—“until that guy said . . . what he said. I thought it was an accident scene. And I would have left, except that everybody blocked the stairs and I couldn’t get out!”

Hogan nodded. “I see your problem.” He turned sideways and motioned to his patrolman. “Jerry, you step aside and let Lee get to the stairs. And, Mr. Cassidy, you can leave now, too.”

The silence grew as I walked across to the stairs and started up. Butch came close behind me. As we edged by, Hogan blocked our way with one hand.

“I’m sure I can count on both of you to keep your mouths shut about Pete’s remark.”

Pete? For a moment I felt quite blank. Then I realized Pete must be the EMT who had spoken, saying Abigail had a depression at the base of her skull. I nodded, agreeing to keep quiet.

Then I leaned close to Hogan. “I hope I didn’t spoil the fenderprints—fingerprints!—when I picked up that rod. I was just being neat.”

“Not your fault, Lee.” Hogan dropped his hand, and Butch and I went on upstairs.

My mind was racing. But I didn’t believe what I’d just heard. It just didn’t seem possible that someone had killed Abigail Montgomery. Why on earth would anyone do that? She sounded like the most inoffensive person who ever lived. Her nephew had described her as shy.

Not that shy people don’t get killed. But usually it’s us brash types who inspire the blunt-instrument treatment.

Butch and I went to the meeting room. The board members, plus Betty Blake, were sitting around the table, looking solemn. The exception might have been Miss Vanderklomp. She wasn’t looking shy. She was looking efficient and bossy, but I doubt she had any other expression.

“I called Timothy Hart,” she said smugly.

Butch looked blank. “Who is Timothy Hart?”

“Mrs. Montgomery’s brother. I’ve never met him, but I thought the family should be informed.”

I started to remark that Hogan might have liked to give Tim the news himself, but before the words were out of my mouth I realized they were pointless.

“Was Tim alone?” I said.

“As far as I know. Why?”

“Because Tim doesn’t drive. I’ll call my husband and ask him to bring Tim down. He lives only a quarter of a mile from us.”

I called the house, but Joe didn’t answer, so I tried his cell phone. His voice didn’t sound too happy.

“Joe, could you give Timothy Hart a ride down to the library? I can’t leave here to pick him up.”

“We’re on our way. Tim already called me.”

“Good. How’s he doing?”

“About the usual.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

My “uh-oh” had reflected our knowledge that the usual for Tim meant he’d been drinking. He’s a sweet guy, drunk or sober, but after five or six strong drinks over a couple of hours he doesn’t track any better than any of us would with that blood-alcohol level.

As soon as I hung up, Miss Vanderklomp spoke. “I thought Timothy Hart lived out on Lake Shore Drive.”

“That’s right.”

“How does he manage, if he doesn’t know how to drive?”

I hesitated, because I didn’t know what to say, but Carol Turley jumped right in there. “He knows. He lost his license after his third DUI,” she said.

Miss Vanderklomp raised her eyebrows. I guess I glared at Carol, because she spoke defensively. “Well, it’s true!”