By Book or by Crook (21 page)

“Lucy!” Theodore exclaimed. “How lovely to see you, my dear.” He seemed to have decided to forget all about yesterday’s fiasco, and that was fine with me. For the funeral he’d dressed in full English-intellectual mode in a belted brown Harris Tweed jacket. He wore a red sweater vest underneath, a gray cravat around his neck, and a perfectly folded red handkerchief tucked into the jacket pocket. He looked as though he were about to head out among the gorse and heather for a day of grouse hunting. “May I get you some refreshment? They aren’t able
to serve a decent cup of tea, but the coffee is palatable.”

“No, but thanks. I wanted to ask you something about that night. The night of the reception at the library.”

“Ask away.” Behind the plain glass of his spectacles, his eyes shone with curiosity.

“When you encountered Mr. Uppiton upstairs, just before . . . just before he died, did you notice if he was carrying anything?”

He thought for a few moments. “Can’t say as I did.”

“A wineglass or a bottle of beer, maybe?”

“Why are you asking?”

“No reason,” I squeaked. The police report said that Jonathan Uppiton had been stabbed. It didn’t mention the weapon, and everyone naturally assumed a knife. Other than the police, only those of us—Bertie, Connor, and I—who’d been in the room knew the truth. We’d been ordered not to talk about it.

And, I suddenly realized, here I was now, talking about it. “The . . . uh . . . caterers reported some things missing when they packed up.”

The look on his face clearly indicated that he didn’t believe me.

I cocked my head to one side and tossed him a smile. “You’re so observant, I thought you’d know.” He preened. I held my smile, but it wasn’t easy. The last time I’d seen that look in his small eyes, he’d been admiring the Austens.

“I’m finished here,” he said. “I’ve paid my respects, the few that I had, to Jonathan. Why don’t
you and I slip away for a nice drink somewhere? An early dinner, maybe.” His right eye drooped in what he might have intended to be a wink.

“Gee, that would be nice. But I have to get back to the library. I’m on duty tonight.”

“You don’t keep evening hours on Thursday.”

I leaned toward him. He bent his head to hear better. I smelled tobacco and the acrid scent of clothing far too heavy for the climate. “We’re taking shifts guarding the books. Around the clock.”

“Very wise. But a young lady like you shouldn’t be alone. Let me . . .”

I was digging a deeper and deeper hole for myself. “That’s so nice of you, Mr. Kowalski, but Ronald will be with me.”

“Theodore, please.”

“Theodore. About that night? Mr. Uppiton?”

“Was Jonathan carrying anything when we had our unpleasant encounter on the stairs? He was not. I’m sure of it. He was highly agitated and waved his hands about a great deal. Mustn’t speak ill of the dead and all that, but Jonathan always was inclined to be a drama queen. His hands were empty.”

“Thanks.”

“About that drink. You don’t have to go back immediately, do you?”

“Oh, gee. Bertie’s waving to me. I better see what she wants. Thanks again.”

I dashed off. Bertie was nowhere in sight, but it was the best excuse for an escape I could think of. Time for me to take my leave. The crowd was building around the buffet table. Mrs. Garbage Problem was right about one thing: a funeral made people
mighty hungry.
I’d better grab a pecan tart to take with me. Maybe one of those lemon squares, too.

The oatmeal and raisin cookies looked good. They’d do for dessert tonight. (The Häagen-Dazs had somehow been finished off yesterday.) I loaded up on treats, folded everything into a napkin printed with Josie’s logo, and tucked them into my bag. Through the serving hatch I could see Butch talking to Josie while he vacuumed up the sandwich tray she was attempting to refill. Detective Watson was with Uncle Amos and his fishing buddy.

Louise Jane and Andrew were chatting to Diane Uppiton, while Curtis hovered at the grieving widow’s elbow. Before leaving, it would be polite for me to express my condolences. I approached the little group. “Of course,” Louise Jane was saying, “the history of the Outer Banks is an awful important component of the library. . . . Oh, hello, Lucy. We were just talking about the direction Diane and Curtis want to take the Lighthouse Library.”

“Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to say it was a lovely service, Mrs. Uppiton. Mr. Uppiton will be very much missed.”

Diane looked at me though red, unfocused eyes. I wondered if she’d had more than a few drinks to get her through the funeral. “Who are you again?”

“I’m Lucy, the . . .”

“Librarian’s assistant,” Curtis said. “You remember Lucy, babe. Bertie’s helper.”

“I am the assistant librarian,” I said, in tones reminiscent of mother chastising the employee of the flower shop for bringing salmon roses to the
bridge-club charity luncheon, not peach as she had ordered. “Not the librarian’s assistant. If you’re going to try to run a library board, Mr. Gardner, you need to learn the difference.”

Mother managed to get twenty percent taken off the cost of the flowers. I wasn’t quite so successful. “Whatever,” Curtis said, with a shrug.

Louise Jane focused her crocodile smile on me. “I was reminding Diane and Curtis of how important history is to us in North Carolina, particularly in the Outer Banks. Someone with an in-depth knowledge of that history, with generations of roots planted in the sand and marsh, is much more vital to the running of the library than any outsider. Even one with a degree.”

“Mr. Uppiton’s death has worked out rather well for you, hasn’t it, Louise Jane?” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to grab them and stuff them back. Fortunately, Diane didn’t seem to have heard. She was off on her private cloud. Curtis grinned in anticipation of a catfight. Louise Jane’s eyes blazed with anger.

“Who do you think you are?” Andrew said. “Take that back.”

“It’s all right, Andrew.” Louise Jane patted his arm. She forced out a light laugh, but the look she focused on me would stop even my mother in her tracks. “Lucy’s understandably upset. Poor little Lucy. So out of her depth.”

I turned and walked away.

“I’m sure you’d love a glass of tea, Mrs. Uppiton,” Louise Jane said. “Let Andrew get you something.”

I left the ill-lit, noisy hall and walked into the hot, bright sun of an Outer Banks summer afternoon and pulled my sunglasses out of my bag. My eyes prickled, and not just against the sunlight. Tears were gathering, threatening to spill over. I wiped one away as I unlocked my car door.

I sat behind the wheel but didn’t put the key in the ignition. I might as well give up, go home. Once the Austen exhibit was over, the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library didn’t need both me and Louise Jane. Jonathan Uppiton was barely in the ground, and Louise Jane was fighting hard for her position. What chance did I—an outsider—have against her? She’d wear away at Curtis Gardner like ocean waves reducing a strong rock to fine sand.

Assistant, indeed.

*

I gave myself a mental slap. What sort of daughter of Suzanne Wyatt Richardson would I be if I gave up now? All I could do would be to keep doing the job I’d already come to love as best as I could. Surely that had to be worth something.

But right now I only wanted to go home, crawl under the covers, eat oatmeal cookies and pecan tarts, and read
The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd.

I might even fortify myself with a glass of wine.

I stopped with the key half-turned. The engine died.

Wine. Beer.

Louise Jane had been drinking beer at the reception. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the scene. Louise Jane confronting Jonathan Uppiton
after he’d said he wasn’t thinking of hiring Louise Jane instead of me, but intended to eliminate the position altogether.

She’d been holding something in her hand as she gestured and argued with him.

A beer.

No secret that Louise Jane was desperate for a job at the library. Desperate, but neither qualified nor needed, not that night. To my eyes, a job on the circulation desk seemed scarcely worth killing over, but was it to Louise Jane? She talked about her grandmother and great-grandmother constantly. Her family’s position on the Outer Banks, the history and legacy of her ancestors.

Did Louise Jane see the library position as more than just a job—also a way to get approval from her family?

She might not have intended to kill Jonathan Uppiton. Had she followed him upstairs, found him with the Austen notebook? Did she demand he fire me and hire her in my place? Did he laugh at her? Taunt her?

Did she remind him, once again, of her family’s origins? And did he, mockingly, pick up the map book and say he didn’t need her? It was all in books like this one.

As if I were watching a movie, I saw it play out in front of my eyes. Louise Jane, overcome with rage, lashing out at her tormenter with the only thing she had at hand. A bottle of beer.

And then, realizing what she’d done, dashing downstairs to join the party. Afraid to call for help. Afraid she’d be accused of murder.

Or had the killing not been an accident at all, but deliberate? Had she murdered Mr. Uppiton knowing the next person up the stairs would be Bertie? Had Louise Jane killed Jonathan to set a trap for Bertie?

Bertie—the only one who stood in the way of Louise Jane getting her long-desired job.

How did that tie in to the theft of the books? First rule of detecting: ask,
Cui bono?
Who benefits? Clearly, Louise Jane. She did, in fact, achieve her fondest dream when the books began to disappear and the running of the library became more than the permanent staff could handle.

Why, then, had
Mansfield Park
been stolen and hidden in my room
after
Louise Jane started working at the library?

Did she want to get rid of me that much?

The workings of the sort of twisted mind that would kill a man in cold blood to get a job were probably not something I could fully understand.

What had Louise Jane said to me outside my apartment door, after laying the “protective” herbs? That the
favored
staff had been partying without her. The only reason she’d know about Tuesday night’s get-together would be if she’d seen us. Someone, I remembered, had been parked in the dark, watching the lighthouse. Watching us come and go. That someone had driven off without turning her headlights on, although it was dark. Clearly whoever it was had not wanted to be seen. Had Louise Jane been watching the lighthouse on other nights, and when all the lights were off pulled the spare key out from under its rock and used it to get in and take
Mansfield Park
? And then, when the locks were changed, had she been forced to sit and stew in her car under cover of darkness?

I drove home very slowly, so deep in thought I scarcely noticed the RVs, camper trailers, and cars with out-of-state plates honking at me to speed up or get out of the way.

I let myself into the library and found Aaron sitting in a chair in the Austen alcove, Charles in his lap. My cousin had been reading, but both he and the cat came to attention when they heard my key in the lock and my voice calling out. He stretched those football-playing shoulders and rose to his full height. My mom and Aunt Ellen are on the short side, and I had the misfortune (I sometimes thought when standing next to the five-foot-ten, willowy Josie) of inheriting those genes. Uncle Amos is six foot two, and his children took after his side of the family.

Charles jumped down with a meow and wrapped himself around my ankles.

“Whatcha reading?” I asked, bending down to give the cat a scratch in greeting.

Aaron hesitated before holding up the book somewhat sheepishly. A paperback copy of
Pride and Prejudice,
the one with Keira Knightley on the cover.

“Enjoying it?”

“I forgot to bring a sports magazine, and the cell phone reception isn’t worth much in here.”

“You have to stand by a window.”

“Yeah, but Mom said I was to guard the cabinet.” He pointed at the picture on the front cover of the book. “She was in
Pirates of the Caribbean
, so I figured this book would be the same sorta thing.”

“It’s not.”

“Yeah, so I noticed. But it’s not bad. Once you get into the fancy language and stuff.”

I hid a grin. “Thanks, Aaron. You can go now. I’ll check the book out for you.”

“You gonna be okay here by yourself?”

“I work here, remember? I’ll stay with the books. It’s almost six now. Ronald’s coming by at seven to spend the night. I’ve some work to do, anyway.”

He still looked uncertain.

“We’ve got this, Aaron,” I said.

I was confident there wouldn’t be any more thefts. Louise Jane had tried to implicate me, but that had failed. She was now taking a more subtle approach, turning Curtis and Diane against me.

I checked out the book, and Aaron stuffed it into his backpack. “Did you know today’s my mom and dad’s thirty-fifth wedding anniversary?”

“No. They never said anything.”

“They wouldn’t. You know Mom. Doesn’t like people making a fuss. They’re going to Owen’s for dinner. Then they’re spending the night in the hotel where they went on their wedding night.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah. Well, see ya,” he said.

“Thanks again. Oh, uh, would you like a pecan tart? I brought some from the funeral.” I figured I could be nice and offer to share. Even though Aaron had access to all he could eat of his big sister’s baking.

“Sure!” he replied. And I remembered that when it came to young men, there was no limit to all they could eat. I unwrapped the paper napkin and Aaron
scooped up the tart. He looked longingly at the remaining cookie and square. “Help yourself,” I said, with a sinking heart. “I had enough at the funeral.”

He snatched the napkin. “Thanks, Lucy.”

The door slammed behind him. I picked up the phone on the circulation desk and dialed a familiar number. It went immediately to voice mail.

“Hi, Butch. It’s Lucy. I’ve thought of something. Something about the killing of Jonathan Uppiton that’s really important. I’m at the library and plan to stay in all night. Give me a call when you have a minute. Bye!”