Лори Касс - Borrowed Crime

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On Sunday, after sleeping late and waking with Eddie curled into the crook of my elbow, I poked at the breakfast Aunt Frances cooked for me and then walked through the snow to the sheriff’s office to give my statement.

I’d been exhausted the night before when I returned home, and even more exhausted after I’d texted Tucker and called Stephen. But a good night’s sleep, and, after my visit to the sheriff’s office, a nap and a phone call with Kristen (“Your cat has excellent taste in women”) revived me to the point of smiles, if not laughter. Aunt Frances, Eddie, and I spent the evening eating pizza from Fat Boys and binge watching episodes of M*A*S*H, and my sleep that night was clear of dreams.

The library was quiet and dark when I arrived early on Monday morning, and first thing, even before starting up my computer, I called the garage for the bad news.

“Ah, it’s not so bad,” Darren said. “Nothing structural—just a little body work. And it won’t take much to patch up those bullet holes.” He paused. “You’re all right, right?”

His concern made my eyes sting a bit. “I’m fine,” I said. And I would be. Denise was safe, Eddie was safe, and the bookmobile would live to ride again. Somewhere, anyway.

I thanked Darren and looked at the number on my e-mail’s in-box with disfavor. How, exactly, could I have received seventy-three e-mails since leaving the library on Friday? Once again, I patted myself on the back for making a firm vow to never check library e-mail when I wasn’t working. I could have, sure, but why? There wasn’t much that happened at a library than needed instant attention.

Then again, seventy-three e-mails . . .

I pushed back my chair and stood. This required coffee. Maybe even Kelsey coffee. With a mug or two under my belt, I’d be ready to tackle anything.

But before the coffee was done brewing, the entire library staff was in the break room, all wanting to know what happened on Saturday, all with twisted stories of what they’d heard had happened.

“Denise got shot, is what the guys at the Round Table were saying,” Josh said.

“The poor bookmobile!” Kelsey was almost crying. “I heard it was totaled!”

“What about Eddie?” Donna asked, her face creased with concern. “No one’s said anything about him. Is he okay?”

Holly looked me up and down. “Someone told me you were in the hospital, in the ICU, but that was probably wrong.”

I grinned at her. “Probably,” I said and, for no reason other than the fact that I was surrounded by friends who cared about me, my dark mood lifted and the metaphorical sun came out.

Then came the voice of doom: “Minerva.”

My compatriots froze solid. “Good morning, Stephen,” I said cheerfully. In the past two days I’d almost destroyed the bookmobile, faced down a stone-cold killer, and edged away from an uncomfortable situation with Ash Wolverson into what might be friendship. There was nothing Stephen could do that would topple me.

“Upstairs,” he said tersely. “Now.”

As soon as the door shut behind him, my good friends started chattering about the pending possibilities.

“Is he going to fire you?” Kelsey asked.

“If he does,” Josh said, “can I have your office?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Holly scolded him. “Stephen would never fire Minnie. She’s too important.”

Unfortunately, I was old enough to know that everyone was expendable. “Only the library board can fire me,” I said. But I hoped now that everything was out in the open, they wouldn’t. After all, with Allison in jail, Tammy’s lawsuit couldn’t be valid. Then again, what did I know about the law? Reading Scott Turow’s books wasn’t exactly the equivalent of a law degree.

“Oh . . .” Donna said. We all turned to look at her. The sound she’d made had been almost one of pain.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Yesterday morning,” she said, picking invisible lint off her sweater, “I drove past the library on the way to church. There were a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and I couldn’t figure it out until I saw Otis Rahn come into church a little late.”

The room spun in a fast, whirling circle, and I put my hand on the wall to steady myself.

“The board met on a Sunday morning?” Kelsey whispered.

As one unit, they all turned to look at me, but I didn’t look at them. Didn’t want to see their pity, or hear their worry or anything at all except normal library complaints about recalcitrant software and mistakenly shelved books. “I’d better get going,” I murmured, and headed upstairs in Stephen’s wake.

When I entered his office, Stephen was standing at one of the windows, looking out across the snow-whitened rooftops of downtown Chilson.

“Ah, Minerva,” he said without turning around. “Please sit down.”

No way was I going to sit while he was still on his feet. If I was going to get fired, I’d take it standing tall. All sixty inches of me, which always sounded taller than five feet.

“I have a number of things to discuss.” Stephen tilted his head. “Four, to be exact. Number one.” He held out the index finger of one hand. “Due to our phone conversation on Saturday, I called an emergency meeting of the library board. We met yesterday morning, and, as you might be able to imagine, we had a number of issues on the agenda.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I can imagine.”

“With such a decided resolution to the dangers threatening the bookmobile, the board reached a quick consensus regarding the vehicle’s future.” He paused and turned slightly. Not enough to make eye contact with me, but that was nothing new. “The bookmobile itself has a future, correct?” he asked. “With regard to its physical condition?”

I told him what Darren had said, and he went back to staring out the window.

“The board has no issues,” he said, “with the continuance of the bookmobile program. Ms. Shelburt has dropped her lawsuit against the library.”

“That’s great.” Happiness and relief rushed through me. “But I still need to find funding for it.”

Stephen shook his head, and my propped-up spirits started falling again. He sighed. “Minerva, don’t you read your e-mail?”

My chin went up. “Of course I do. It’s the first thing I do every workday, and the last thing I do before I leave at night.”

“But you don’t check your e-mail on your days off.”

He made it a statement, and my chin went up even farther. “No,” I said firmly. “I do not. I’m salaried. I work at least sixty hours a week, and when I leave this building, I’m done working until I come back to the building. I resent the implication that I’m not working hard enough, and if that’s what you—”

Stephen turned to face me and I stopped midstream, because he was . . . well, he was smiling. “Minnie, you amuse me.”

“I . . . do?”

“If you’d read your e-mail, you would have learned that the auction of Russell McCade’s artwork, the proceeds of which are coming to the library, fetched an astronomical price. One of the highest prices ever for one of his works.”

“Highest?”

Stephen nodded and was still smiling when he told me the number. Which was when I did sit down. Cade’s broken phone call and his excitement suddenly made sense. When he’d talked about a “thousand dollars” that was just the tail end of the six-figure amount that was going to the library.

Only . . . what else had he said? I looked at my boss, not wanting to know but having to ask. “Is there a problem with the donation? Cade called Friday, but the connection was bad, and I could have sworn he said something about ‘not the library.’”