Лори Касс - Pouncing On Murder

“Sure. But it takes time and money and a lot of decision making. They’d be hiring a surveyor, a civil engineer, a contractor.” She ticked off the expensive professions on long, slender fingers. “They’d have to talk to utility companies and to attorneys and then there are the tax issues.”

“It sounds complicated,” I said faintly.

“But fun, too.” Janine grinned. “I can’t wait until Felix starts up another big project. To be a part of something like that?” Her grin became wide. “It’ll be great.”

“So Felix is looking for something big?” I asked.

“Developers are always looking for the next big thing,” she said. “Take the Gill property. After Mr. Gill died, Felix was talking to the heirs of the estate, but they’re not interested in selling. There’s always another property around the corner, though. You never know what’s going to walk in the door.”

I laughed. “Sorry I wasn’t bringing you the next big thing. But I wish you luck in finding it.” And somehow I was sure she would.

Once outside and wheeling the handcart away, I reflected on what I’d learned, which was that Janine didn’t seem to know that Felix’s finances were precarious, and that she also didn’t appear to have any knowledge of Felix talking to Henry last fall about selling.

Then again, maybe Janine was just very good at not letting people see what she didn’t want them to see.

I continued down the street. Two doors away from Pam’s store, a dark green truck passed me, the image of a gold shield on its door, and even through the truck’s closed windows, I could see the bright red of the driver’s hair. The truck slowed. Its turn signal blinked on, and the truck made a left turn into the Round Table’s parking lot.

As I stood there, watching, a tall man stepped out from behind the wheel, stretched even taller, and walked into the diner.

I slapped my pocket for my cell phone and pulled it out. “Irene? Could you take a break and come downtown for a minute? . . . I know, but this is important.”

• • •

Irene and I walked into the restaurant’s lobby. “Over there,” I murmured. It was an unnecessary comment, because the dining area was empty except for an elderly couple at a table and the red-haired guy sitting in a booth by himself.

“Is that who you saw?” I asked. “The guy you thought was Seth Wartella?”

“Um . . .” She stared at him hard. “I . . . don’t know.”

“Hang on,” I said, and walked up to him. “Hi,” I said. “Tony, right? I’m Minnie Hamilton. We talked late last year, in the winter.”

He smiled, which made his ears seem to stick out even farther, and stood, forcing me to look up, his height being six foot. “Sure. You’re the bookmobile lady, right? Nice to put a face to the name.” He held out a hand and we shook. “How are things going in library land?”

We chatted for a moment, and then I said, “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise.” He smiled and slid back into the booth, and I walked away.

Irene had her hand on the door and led me outside to the fresh air before I could say a word.

“He was the one I saw,” she said, hugging herself. “He’s wearing the same clothes in that weird green color. But he’s not Seth. This guy is way too tall. And he looks a lot more, oh, I don’t know, outdoorsy somehow.”

“That’s because he’s a conservation officer,” I said. “COs enforce hunting and fishing regulations.” They also protected the state’s natural resources, were often first responders to natural disasters and emergencies, and did general law enforcement. Which was all stuff I’d learned last winter. I might have been born and raised in suburbia, but I was learning.

“Oh.” Irene glanced back at the restaurant. “I thought he was a security guard or something.”

I smiled. “In Chilson? We don’t do security here.”

But the response to that was obvious to both of us: maybe we should.

• • •

After I parked the cookbooks in my office, I headed out to the lawn with Gordon to look at the tents. We were almost done when a movement at the edge of my vision caught my eye. I turned and saw Kelsey, one of our part-time clerks, pointing in my direction.

Gordon noted that my attention had wandered from our discussion of how to flag the tent pegs and guy ropes so that people wouldn’t walk into them. “Problem?” he asked.

“Not sure.” I watched as a large woman barreled across the lawn toward me. Her arms were pumping, her hair was flying all around her head, and there wasn’t a single obvious ounce of that kind intelligence that had been so obvious when I’d met her two days ago.

“Are we all set?” I asked, easing away from Gordon. Because whatever Larabeth had to say to me, I was guessing no one else needed to hear it. “I’ll be back later, to see how things are going.” And then, before he could say anything and just before Larabeth got close enough to start talking—or yelling, as the case might be—I stepped away from Gordon and all the people who were milling about.

“I need to talk to you!” Larabeth shouted, making me wince; she was so close that I could have heard her if she’d whispered.

“Sure. How about over here?” I gestured for her to follow me. We went around the corner of the library into a shaded and secluded nook where, now that it was warm, flowering plants were starting to leap out of the ground. Soon there would be an abundance of lilies and all sorts of other pretty flowers I couldn’t name. Even now, with only a few leaves sprouting from the shrubs, it was a soothing place and I hoped that it would calm Larabeth.

“Let’s sit.” I took one end of a teak bench and nodded for her to join me.

“Can’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “Too mad.” She strode back and forth, arms still pumping, her hands in fists, her face bright red.

“At me?” I asked.

“What?” She whirled around to face me and it was then that I noticed that it wasn’t just her face that was red. “Of course not you,” she said, smearing at her reddened eyes with her knuckles. “I’m only here because I need to find out for sure and you’re the only one I can talk to. You don’t know me, so it’s okay, you’ll tell me the truth, you don’t have any reason to lie, and besides, you’re a librarian.”

How the librarian occupation followed with the rest of her rambling sentence, I wasn’t sure, but it was nice to think that my profession was considered a trustworthy one. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“It’s . . . it’s . . .” A tear trickled down her cheek. She turned away, muttering, “I’ll be right back,” and strode off.

I sat back and looked up at the sky. Clouds were moving in, but it was still a lovely day. The birds were singing, the grass was growing green, and the book fair was going to happen regardless of whether I ran around like a madwoman these next few hours trying to make sure everything was perfect. So why not take a few minutes to enjoy the day? Why not breathe in the smell of damp dirt and clean air and—

“All right.” Larabeth sat down hard on the other end of the bench. “I’m better now. And all I really have is one question for you. I can see that you’re busy and I’m sorry to take up your time. Normally I would have called first, but I had to get out of the house and next thing I knew, I was on my way here.”

She was almost to the rambling stage again, so I jumped in when she stopped for breath. “You have a question?”

“When you stopped by the other day . . .” Her hands gripped each other. “The other day,” she said carefully, “when you stopped by you asked . . .”

I had a sudden, sick feeling that I knew where she was going. “I asked if your husband had been up North the first weekend in April.”