Миранда Джеймс - No Cats Allowed

I tried not to imagine how Reilly’s head had escaped crushing, but I knew there were gaps left on the shelves for the times when more volumes needed to be added to a particular range. Somehow he had fallen so that his head was in one of those gaps. That was the only explanation that occurred to me. For a moment I thought I would throw up, I felt so queasy.

“Dad, are you okay? You’re really pale.” Sean sounded alarmed. “Q.C. has brandy in his office. Should I get you some? Or whiskey?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll be okay. My vivid imagination got the better of me for a moment.”

“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have told you,” Sean said. He looked upset. “I didn’t realize it would have this effect on you.”

“Really, Son, I’ll be okay. The queasiness is passing. Actually, if you have a can of diet soda, that would be good.”

Sean jumped up from behind his desk and disappeared into the hallway. He was back in less than thirty seconds with a cold can. He popped the top and handed it to me. I had a healthy swallow and felt immediately better. It was probably all psychological, because I doubted the diet drink had that kind of medicinal efficacy. Either way, real or imagined, it did the trick.

“Thanks.” I took a deep breath. “The part about the broken nose is really interesting. There’s a possibility Reilly was attacked by a violently jealous young man whose girlfriend Reilly harassed.”

“How do you know that?” Sean frowned. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Since Lisa Krause was giving a statement to the sheriff’s department, I knew Sean would have the information at some point. I might as well tell him now as further indication that Melba had significant competition as a murder suspect. I filled him in on Lisa Krause’s story.

When I’d finished, Sean said, “I remember him. Tuck the Truck, I mean. He once ran thirty-seven yards the wrong way and scored a touchdown for the opposing team.” He laughed. “Not the brightest athlete on the field.” Then he sobered. “He’s certainly big enough to have done that kind of damage to Reilly’s face without even trying to hit him very hard. But if he’s got a violent temper, well, he could break a guy’s neck with a really hard hit.”

I thought about that for a moment. “If he did hit Reilly really hard and killed him, do you think maybe he panicked and put the body in the compact shelving to cover up what he’d done?”

TWENTY

“That’s a plausible scenario,” Sean said.

“But how can we explain the lipstick?” I frowned. “Unless Brent Tucker was responsible for the prank on Reilly’s car, too.”

“How could he have gotten hold of Melba’s lipstick?” Sean asked.

“From his girlfriend. Lisa had the opportunity,” I replied. “But if that’s the case, it means she was a party to the prank. It’s not something I would have expected of her.”

“How well do you really know her, Dad?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Probably not that well,” I had to admit. “We don’t work in the same building, but I often see her when I have occasion to go to the main building.” I paused for a moment. “Starting tomorrow, though, I may be seeing her on a daily basis.”

“Why?” Sean asked.

I told him about my new position as interim director of the library. To my surprise, Sean seemed really pleased by the news.

“I think that’s great,” he said. “I have to say, I’ve thought for a while now you need more to occupy your time than a part-time job and volunteer work. You need more stimulation. You’re not as energetic as you used to be, before you moved back here.”

“As long as I had a wife and two children to support,” I replied, slightly nettled, “I was happy to be energetic. I loved my work, but once you and your sister were out on your own, and then with your mother gone, well, I was happy to slow down a bit. I think I worked hard enough over the years that I earned the right to semi-retire if I want to.”

“You did, Dad.” Sean ran a hand over his head, a gesture that usually meant he was embarrassed. “You earned the right to do what you want. I didn’t mean for you to think I don’t respect that. You and Mom always worked hard, and you instilled your work ethic in Laura and me.” He paused, as if considering his words with care. “It’s just that Laura and I worry about you sometimes, the way you keep getting mixed up in these murders. I guess we both think that if you had more to keep you busy, you might not get involved in these things.”

“I don’t go looking for dead bodies, you know,” I said tartly.

Sean gave me a sheepish grin. “No, I know you don’t, but nevertheless, you do somehow keep stumbling over them.”

“And as long as I do, I can’t help but do what I can to make sure an innocent person, like Melba, isn’t wrongfully accused.” That sounded pompous, even to me. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Sean laughed. “Yes, I do. You’re a good man, Charlie Harris. Now forget what I said, and let’s get back to talking about the murder.”

“Fine with me,” I muttered. Diesel warbled loudly. He had picked up on the sudden tension between Sean and me, minor though it was. A few head scratches reassured him.

“Brent Tucker sounds like a much more viable suspect than Melba,” Sean said. “There’s also the former brother-in-law, Stanley.”

“He could certainly have struck Reilly hard enough to kill,” I said. “He could also have decided to make use of the compact shelving. I wonder if the killer thought it might be taken for an accidental death.”

“If he did, or she did,” Sean said, “then it was a pretty big gamble. How could someone die accidentally that way?”

I considered the question. The shelves moved steadily together, but not that fast. A reasonably agile person could probably escape if two of them suddenly started moving toward each other. A clumsy person who tripped, on the other hand, could end up dead.

But what would have triggered the mechanism to move the shelves? That had to be done manually. I didn’t think the shelves would move spontaneously, even by accident. I put my thoughts into words for Sean.

“I suppose it could have been a freak accident,” he said. “But I think the chances of that are almost nil. In this case, the killer deliberately caused the shelves to close in.”

“Yes.” I drank more of the diet soda to quell my rebellious stomach. “While you were at the sheriff’s department, did you hear anything about the attempts to track down Stanley?”

“No,” Sean replied. “I’m sure they’ll find him, though. A guy that size can’t hide out for long. He’s too noticeable.”

“That’s true,” I said.

Sean consulted a paper on his desk. “Tell me about your encounter with Reilly and his vandalized car.”

I gave him a detailed account of the incident, and he scribbled a few notes. “Thanks,” he said when I’d finished. “I need to talk to the campus cop. What’s his name again?”

“Martin Ford,” I said, and Sean wrote that down.

“One thing I don’t understand is what Reilly was doing at the library last night,” I said.

“Meeting someone,” Sean suggested. “That’s the best explanation I can come up with. The question is who . Also, was Reilly lured to that part of the library with the intent to murder him by using the compact shelving? Or did the killer simply take advantage of the means at hand? Premeditated, or opportunistic?”

I shrugged. I had no idea.

“Are you familiar with that area of the library?”

“I’ve been down there a few times,” I said.

“I haven’t seen it,” Sean said. “Describe it for me.”