Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

Uneasily, I wondered if Jennifer’s demeanor was driving other people away from the library. I toyed with the idea of talking to the board chair, then rejected the plan. If I had a problem with Jennifer, I would discuss it with her first. And right then and there, I vowed to do so that very day. If she pooh-poohed my concerns, I might be driven to speak to the board, but I wouldn’t go over her head without telling her what I was doing.

“Sorry you feel that way,” I said to Mitchell. “But I understand.”

I wrote, To Sally, From Auntie Minnie with oodles of love , on the small birthday-themed tag Mitchell offered, pushed it back across the counter, and asked, “Have you heard anything else about the murder of Dale Lacombe?”

“You mean like who killed him?” He grinned, and the old Mitchell was suddenly back in the room. “Everyone says it’s a toss-up.”

“Oh? The police have two suspects?”

“Nah. It’s a toss-up between half the guys in town who wanted to kill him because he was such a rotten builder and the other half, the ones who wanted to kill him because he was fooling around with their wives.”

I blinked. “He was?”

“All I know is what I hear,” Mitchell said. “And that’s what I hear. Say, I also hear your aunt wants to quit the boardinghouse business, but won’t because you want to hang on to it.”

“What? Where did you hear that?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Just heard it. Is it true? I mean, I don’t blame you, that place is pretty cool.”

This was the talk of the town? How on earth had the word gotten loose? Then I remembered that Aunt Frances and Otto and I had discussed it publicly at lunch that day in Angelique’s. A number of people could have overheard us and repeated the conversation. Or . . . was there something going on that I didn’t know about? “It’s my aunt’s,” I said a little stiffly. “And it’s hers to do with as she wants.”

He took the credit card I held out. “Just asking,” he said. “People wonder, you know?”

“Speaking of wondering,” I asked, “do you remember a car accident the Lacombes were in? It was a long time ago.”

“You bet.” Mitchell zipped the card through the reader. “Everybody thought the guy was going to die and Lacombe would go to jail for manslaughter or something, but that didn’t happen. The guy was from downstate, I remember that.”

“Do you remember the guy’s name?”

“Sure.” Mitchell handed back the card. “No, hang on,” he said, frowning. “I thought I did, but I guess I don’t.” He paused, looking at the ceiling, then shrugged. “Nope. It’s gone. Why do you want to know?”

“No real reason.” At least, not one I would tell him about. “Thanks for taking care of Sally’s present,” I said, and headed outside, only to see the floppy-hatted man who’d talked about the Lacombes at the Three Seasons on the sidewalk, using a cane this time instead of a walker. I gave him a small nod, he gave me an even smaller one in return, and when I’d walked half a block, I heard the distant jingle of the door bells from the toy store.

“Faber!” Mitchell called. “Simon Faber! The name of the guy in the car accident was Simon Faber.”

I half turned to wave my thanks, and saw the startled gaze of the hat man, who was just opening his car door. He glared at Mitchell, glared at me, then slid into his car and drove away.

“That was weird,” I murmured. Maybe hat man had been a friend of Faber’s. I toyed with the idea that hat man actually was Faber, but that seemed beyond unlikely. If Faber was back in town, word would surely have spread, especially with Dale Lacombe recently murdered.

I thought about this for a minute, then called Kristen. No answer, naturally. “Hey,” I said into her voice mail. “Give me a call, will you? I have a question about the other night when I was in the restaurant.”

As I walked up to the library it was Mitchell’s gossip about Dale Lacombe that stuck with me. Was it gossip? Was it truth? Was it both? I’d already learned more unpleasant things about Leese’s father than I was comfortable knowing, but this was a whole new level of discomfort. It was downright icky, and I didn’t know what to do.

Should I call Detective Inwood? Call Ash? If what Mitchell said was true, they probably already knew, but what if they didn’t? If it wasn’t true, I didn’t want to repeat gossipy rumors that could hurt Leese and her family. If it was true, and the sheriff’s office didn’t know, was I being remiss in not passing on the information? Was I not doing my duty as a citizen?

If I could have couched the question in a way that didn’t involve murder, I would have called my mother and asked her advice. But she’d ask too many questions and would end up freaking out, in a motherly sort of way. I didn’t want to put her through that, so the next best person to talk to was Aunt Frances. However, her mind was on Otto these days.

By the time I’d reached that point in my thoughts, I was in the library and at my office door. But instead of going inside, I turned and headed for the front desk.

“Hey, Donna,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”

The gray-haired woman looked away from the computer screen and smiled. “For you? A full minute and a half.”

“This isn’t a library thing,” I said.

“Even better.” She stood and came to the counter. “Is this a private or public conversation?”

I considered the question. “Quietly public.”

“So diplomatic. You could have a future in politics.”

Fake shuddering, I said, “Please don’t make me!”

Donna laughed. “What’s up?”

“A gossipy question I don’t want anyone to know I was asking.”

My coworker’s wise eyes studied me. “Have you considered the possibility that you shouldn’t ask it at all?”

“Absolutely.” I nodded vigorously. “It’s just that not knowing the answer could do more damage than knowing. And it’s not something I want to know, it’s more that I think I have to.”

“And at some point this conversation is going to start making sense?” Donna asked.

“It’s about Dale Lacombe,” I said. “And you know lots of things about people in this town that I don’t.”

She nodded. “Clarity is just around the corner. I can feel it.”

I smiled. “Don’t be so sure. From reliable sources, I know that Carmen and Dale had their disagreements and that they’d separated briefly more than once.”

“This is true,” Donna said. “Carmen and Dale are members of my church. We always knew when they were fighting because they’d sit in their regular spots next to each other, but they wouldn’t share a hymnal. And we always knew when they were separated because they’d drive two cars.”

“Right. Now what I recently heard, and this is from an unreliable source, is that Dale was having extramarital affairs.”

Donna’s gaze shifted away and past me. “Ah. If he was, that opens up a whole new list of murder suspects. Carmen, for one, if she wasn’t already on the list, but also the husbands or significant others of the women Dale was seeing.”

“Have you considered going into police work?” I asked.

“About as seriously as you considered becoming the new library director.” Her focus returned to my face. “I can’t give you an answer about Dale, because I don’t know. Sure, there were rumors, but they were vague and I always thought they were generated from spite.” She smiled wryly. “Dale wasn’t the kind of man who had a lot of friends. Kind of like some other people we know.”

I blinked, and then, as the tap tap of Jennifer’s high heels came into my hearing, I understood what she meant. I also understood that if I didn’t approach Jennifer soon, I’d come up with some task that needed to be accomplished that very day and never get around to discussing the Mitchell situation.