Miranda James - The Silence of the Library

“Sure, you know you’re always welcome. But Kanesha called just before you did, and she’s on her way here, too.”

“That’s fine,” Melba said. “I need to talk to her anyway. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“Sounds good.” I put my cell phone away. “Diesel, guess who’s coming now? Your buddy Melba.”

He recognized the name, and he warbled several times. He stopped washing himself and wandered out of the kitchen. He was headed for the front door to wait for Melba, but Kanesha would arrive first.

Hard upon that thought came the sound of the doorbell. I hurried to the front door to admit Kanesha, first telling the cat that this wouldn’t be his buddy. Diesel meowed and moved aside.

“Morning,” Kanesha said as she stepped inside.

“Come on out to the kitchen. I have fresh coffee waiting.”

“Wonderful, thanks.”

I could hear the tiredness in only those few words. I wondered if she’d had any chance to rest in the past twenty-four hours. I debated asking her, but she could be so prickly at times. Instead I poured the coffee and handed her the mug. She sank into a chair and rested her elbows on the table while she sipped.

“Rough night?” I asked, figuring that was safe enough as a conversation starter. I took a chair across from her.

“Crazy night,” Kanesha muttered. She drew a deep breath and rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Managed about three hours’ sleep, I think.”

“That’s not good,” I said. I figured I’d better let her know Melba was on the way, and I broke the news.

“Good.” Kanesha downed the rest of her coffee and held out the mug. “Could I have a refill?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” she said. “As tired as I am, caffeine’s the only thing keeping me moving and barely upright.”

I handed her the full mug. Since she appeared to have let her usual defenses down, I decided to probe a little. “Can’t you take some time to go home and get a few more hours of sleep? Are things happening that fast that you can’t?”

“Not exactly fast,” Kanesha said, “just hard-down crazy. But I might as well wait till Ms. Gilley gets here so I don’t have to repeat anything.” She covered her mouth as she yawned, and I could feel the waves of exhaustion emanating from her.

Less than a minute later the doorbell rang, and I could hear Diesel’s happy chirping as I headed for the front door. He knew it would be Melba this time, and he was scratching at the knob when I got there. If he ever figured out how to operate the deadbolt on the front door, we were in trouble. “Let me,” I told him.

Melba entered to joyous warbling from the cat, and I moved aside to let the two greet each other. Melba bent so that her face and the cat’s were close and rubbed noses with him. She scratched his head and talked to him for a moment before she straightened and looked up at me.

She didn’t appear quite as exhausted as Kanesha, but I could tell she hadn’t had enough rest. She was impeccably groomed and dressed like she was ready to go to the office, and that was reassuring. That was Melba in control.

“We’re in the kitchen.” I gave her a brief hug, and she and the cat preceded me.

Melba and Kanesha greeted each other while I poured coffee for the new arrival. Melba took my spot, so I sat at the end of the table between them. Diesel wasn’t about to let Melba get more than two inches away from him and crowded against her chair, his head on her thigh.

“Deputy Bates is mighty helpful, I want you to know,” Melba said, looking at Kanesha. “I know he must have been worn out, but he never said a word or tried to hurry me up at all.”

“He knows his job,” Kanesha replied. She glanced at me. “I asked Ms. Gilley to have a look through Mrs. Taylor’s house, see if she thought anything was missing. Bates was there to assist.”

“And to make sure I didn’t take anything myself.” Melba smiled. “Far as I could tell, none of Carrie’s jewelry or valuables was missing. She didn’t believe in having a lot of knickknacks around anyway, and that made things a lot easier. She didn’t have much jewelry that was valuable, either, and the two pieces she did have are probably in her safety-deposit box in the bank.”

“Then I suppose you can rule out robbery as a motive,” I said to Kanesha.

“There was something missing,” Melba said before Kanesha could respond to my statement. “I doubt anybody else would consider it valuable, but I know to Carrie it surely was.”

Was it one of her books? I wondered.

“What was it then?” Kanesha asked.

“I thought I better have a look through Carrie’s files,” Melba said. “I wasn’t as interested in those kids’ books as she was, even though I read some of them when I was a kid myself. But I knew how important all that stuff was to Carrie. Anyway, I had heard her talk often enough about that Mrs. Cartwright. Carrie sure did an awful lot of research on that woman.” She paused to sip at her coffee and stare into space for a moment.

Sometimes Melba took a long time to get to the point, and this was obviously going to be one of those times. I was ready to poke her, and I’m sure Kanesha felt as impatient as I did, waiting for Melba to say what she had to say. I suspected she did it on purpose, but she would never admit it.

“Does that mean some of Mrs. Taylor’s files are missing?” Kanesha asked, a slight edge to her tone.

Melba nodded. “Yes, ma’am, they sure are. She had just about a whole file drawer on Mrs. Cartwright. I should know, because she showed it to me often enough.” There was a catch in her voice, and for a moment I thought she might break down. Funny how those little quirks of a friend’s personality could hit you when they were gone, things that annoyed you when they were alive, but now didn’t seem all that bad. I knew how Melba probably felt right then.

Kanesha must have sensed it, too, because she didn’t press Melba to continue.

After a heavy sigh and another sip of coffee, Melba went on. “When I checked that drawer, it was about one-third empty. There was no sign of that stuff anywhere else in the house, so whoever killed her took it.”

THIRTY

“Was there something really valuable in those files?” Kanesha asked.

Melba frowned. “I’m not sure if there was anything worth money. I don’t understand all the stuff that goes on with collecting books the way Carrie did. She did tell me a lot of her books were worth a bunch because of their condition. I guess she meant they were in real good shape. She talked about dust jackets sometimes.”

I recalled Carrie Taylor’s parting words the final time I saw her. She claimed she had items in her collection that Gordon Betts didn’t. I wondered now whether she meant documents in her files rather than specific copies of Electra Cartwright’s books. Maybe a rare copy of The Mystery at Spellwood Mansion didn’t enter into the motive for murder at all.

“Do you have any idea what kind of documents Mrs. Taylor had in her files?” Kanesha asked. “Did she ever show you what was in them?”

“She pulled them out a few times and leafed through them with me.” Melba shrugged. “Carrie was a dear friend, but I wasn’t all that crazy about Mrs. Cartwright and her books the way Carrie was. I would listen to her talk about all that stuff, because sometimes you have to let your friends go on and on about things you’re not really interested in, right?”

I nodded. Kanesha remained impassive.

Melba still hadn’t answered the critical question. I decided to risk asking it again, hoping that she would finally get to the point.

“What kind of documents did she have in those files?”