Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive (16 page)

“Have you been talking to Josh Finstermeyer?” I blurted.

Robin looked disconcerted. “Who’s he?” he asked.

“That boy in the corner who’s trying to hide behind the shelves.”

Robin looked as if he was having trouble suppressing a laugh. “Robbing the cradle, are we?”

I sighed. “Can we get back on track here?”

“I don’t know; if Josh Finstermeyer is your beverage of choice . . .”

“Robin!” I growled. I felt that everyone in the library was watching us, and I was right.

Perry was taking a gander, as was young Josh, to say nothing of Tracy, who’d lowered her newspaper to stare. I felt my face turning red.

“I have two overdue books,” Robin said, his face suddenly serious. His voice was soft and significant. I looked up at him. “Two,” he emphasized. He waggled his eyebrows.

“That’s . . .
very
bad.” I narrowed my eyes. For the first time in my life, I wished I had a riding crop. I would flick it against my boot.

He bent down to my ear. “I turned down the corners of some of the pages,” he whispered.

“You do need to be punished. At length,” I said. I raised my eyebrows to make sure he’d get it. “At
length
,” I repeated.

He was a little pink himself.

“Maybe you should come to my room tonight,” he said, very low. “To collect my fine.”

I decided to escalate.

“Why not now?” I said coolly. I glanced at the clock. “I’m off work.” I gave him a challenging look.

His eyes widened behind his glasses. He ran a hand through his hair, which looked as if he’d been doing that all day.

“Can you hold this mood on the drive out to the motel?” he whispered in my ear. Very close.

“It’s entirely possible.” My house was a lot closer, but I knew without considering the idea closely that my house was out. I cast a blessing at him for not suggesting it.

“Then let’s go.”

“I’ll go clock out.”

“You remember my room number?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“You’d better be,” I said, in my stern librarian persona.

“Ooooh,” he breathed, giving me a look that let me know for sure he was into this.

I clocked out and retrieved my purse in record time, and was getting into my car in the employee parking lot behind the library when I saw Tracy approaching. Oh, heck, no! I was in a mood, and I didn’t want to get out.

I decided if I were behaving uncharacteristically, I’d just go all the way. I pretended I didn’t see her and pulled out of the parking lot when she was just a few feet away.

I had other fish to fry.

Robin, probably as uncertain as I was, was still fully dressed when I knocked on his door.

But he had lit some candles and drawn the curtains tight.

“On your back, miscreant,” I said sternly. I had always wanted to say “miscreant.”

There was delight in the crooked smile, quickly smothered by a very well assumed expression of fear. “It was just two books,” he pled, stepping out of his shoes and socks and lying on his back on the bed. Yep, he was excited, all right.

“That’s two books too many,” I told me. “You have to learn your lesson.” With an expression of severity, I began unbuttoning my blouse. “What’s the worst punishment you can think of, you . . . scofflaw?”

Robin winced, and I could tell I would pay for that one, later. “The worst punishment,” he said thoughtfully. “The worst punishment would be to have to perform sexually, again and again—with only the briefest breaks for naps and food—for a small naked woman with ...” His eyes widened. I’d taken off my bra. “Oh, boy,” he breathed.

I climbed on the bed and straddled him. As I looked down at him, his eyes darkened. I took his glasses off and put them by mine on the bedside table. “Can you think of anything that would make that punishment worse?” I murmured, bending down to him. My lips were an inch from his. My hair fell around his face.

“I would be forced to make you come twice for every one time I do,” he said, his voice rough and deep.

“Then I guess you better get started.”

I was changing my clothes when the phone rang. Almost without looking at my caller ID, I was sure my mother was on the other end of the line.

“Where were you last night?” she said, considerably agitated.

“I spent the night with a friend,” I said with commendable restraint. “Now I have about fifteen minutes to get to work.”

“A friend? Who?”

I let the silence hang.

“Oh,” she said slowly. “That kind of friend.”

More silence.

“Oh, sorry. Well, that’s just... I didn’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” I could practically hear the questions seething over the line. I was proud of Mother’s self-control.

“I’m fine, thank you.” In fact, more than fine. I was relaxed and mellow to an extent I could hardly believe. Except for the discomfort when I walked. Or sat. Or crouched.

I picked through my sweaters, looking for a turtleneck. Surely it was cool enough to make a turtleneck not unreasonable? I glanced into the full-length mirror on the closet door. Definitely needed the turtleneck. “Oh, Mom, I need to look for a house in town and put this one on the market.”

Quite a silence on the other end. “Aren’t you rushing into this?”

“I’m not rushing. I had already decided to move back into town.” The last thing in the world I needed today was to have to defend myself to my mother.

There may have been a little edge in my tone, because she immediately said she’d list the house that very day. “Who would you like to be your realtor?” she asked, keeping her voice scrupulously neutral. I’d had Eileen Norris the last time I’d been house hunting, but I had a better idea this morning.

“Why, the head honcho, of course.”

“Really? You think we can gee and haw together?”

“Sure. After all, this is your area of expertise.”

“Well, tell me what you want, and I’ll line some things up.”

“I have no idea.” I tried not to wonder if Robin really meant to stick around in Lawrenceton, if he planned to buy a house or rent, should I be thinking of getting a house that would hold another person—and his books. No, no point in thinking of that. Jumping the gun, for sure. “I guess I want a three-bedroom, but I need a room for a library, and a dining room, and a living room. And you know how I feel about plenty of kitchen counter space. On the other hand, I don’t want much yard to take care of.”

“Your house is ready to show, I’ll bet,” Mother said.

“Yes. Isn’t that scary? All I’d have to do is pick up the floor of my closet.”

“I’ll list it today,” she promised. “I hope this is the start of a new era for you, honey.”

“I guess it is,” I said, after turning that over in my mind. “I think it is.” We discussed the price I should set on my house and what I was willing to spend on my next one. I was once again grateful for my financial health. The independence it afforded me was absolutely blissful.

“What’s your work schedule like the rest of the week?” my mother asked.

“I work this morning, but I’m free this afternoon.”

“Let me see what I can line up by then.”

“Wow. So quickly?”

“I didn’t get where I am by letting my feet drag,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll come by Select when I get off work.”

“Good, I’ll see you then.”

The movie crew had resumed its activity at the courthouse this morning. I could tell from the traffic snarls in the area. Robin had said they would be shooting the scenes that didn’t include Celia’s character, until the recasting of the role was accomplished. He didn’t expect that to take long.

I glimpsed the Molly’s Moveable Feasts van parked a block away from the courthouse, and saw the familiar table set up further down the street. A man was in charge of it today. I wondered where Tracy had gone, and what she had wanted with me the day before. I could feel my cheeks burn as I thought of what had followed the little scene in the library. Just when you think you know yourself. . . well, it had been the most fun I’d had in a long, long year.

“Patricia,” I said, trying not to sound disgustingly cheerful. “How are you today?” She was taking the cover off her computer and making little preliminary movements of things on her desk. Her pencil had to be just so, her little magnetic bowl of paper clips in a specific location, her chair exactly the right height.

“Just fine, thank you, Ms. Teagarden,” Patricia said in a clipped voice. “What do you think the police are up to, with Celia Shaw’s death?”

“I have no idea. I haven’t talked to anyone in the police department since the day it happened.”

She looked disappointed. “Oh,” she said. “I understood you were a particular friend of Detective Smith’s.”

“No, that’s not correct.” I could do clipped, too. “As far as I know, they could be coming to arrest you any minute.”

My mildly belligerent comment had an amazing result. Patricia Bledsoe stared at me as though I’d grown a second head. She turned absolutely green.

“What do you mean?” she said, her voice faltering.

“I was just, ah, emphasizing how little I know about the investigation,” I said, convinced I’d gone over a line somehow. I felt knee-high to a grasshopper. “Patricia! You, of all people ... I mean, I bet you iron your
underwear
.”

Patricia looked at me with loathing. “Go work,” she said.

She’d crossed the boundary into open rudeness in a great rush. What on earth had I done? I felt pretty truculent myself, by now. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t escalate the hostility in the room, so I spun on my heel and left, my excellent mood stuffed in a sack for at least a little while.

My boss, Sam derrick, came in the employee door as I was stuffing my purse into my little locker.

“Good morning, Roe,” he said. His heavy glasses reflected the overhead light. He was carrying his briefcase, which was as much a part of Sam as his white shirt and tie. You’d think he carried nuclear warhead firing codes in it instead of library paperwork.

“Watch out for Patricia today,” I said.

“Something’s wrong with Patricia?” Sam was as protective of his prize secretary as if she’d been a pedigreed bitch.

“She’s a mite testy,” I said, trying not to sound spiteful.

“Have you gone and upset her?” Sam sounded calm, but I knew better. A good secretary, one who meshes perfectly with her boss’s moods and personality, is worth rubies. Sam would much rather see me quit than lose Patricia.

“She went and upset herself,” I said in my own defense.

“You obviously didn’t know that the day Celia Shaw came in here and checked out some books, I gave Ms. Shaw a brief tour of the library,” Sam said.

Oh, I bet that had just made Celia’s day. “I’m sure she enjoyed it,” I muttered.

“And she met Patricia then, shook hands with her,” Sam went on. “So naturally Patricia is upset by the news of Ms. Shaw’s murder.”

“I see that I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said, and that was the truth.

Casting me a hostile look, Sam stomped into Patricia’s cubicle. I could see him saying soothing things through the clear upper panels.

So much for senior employee loyalty, I told myself, now just as frazzled as Patricia. I’d been working for the library for ten years or more, and Patricia had been here less than a year.

I stomped out to the main desk, emotionally loaded for bear. Luckily for my coworkers, about ten minutes after the library opened, the heavier of the two ladies who worked at Flower Fantasies brought in a beautiful flower arrangement and carefully set it on the desk in front of me, as I was beginning to telephone the people who had overdue books. Chrysanthemums, daisies, and other flowers I couldn’t identify mixed in a medley of warm colors against their dark green background.

“It’s for me?” How long had it been since anyone had sent me flowers?

“Yes, ma’am,” the woman said, beaming at my pleasure. “First order of the day.”

I took the card out of the little plastic prongs and opened the envelope.

“You are beyond beautiful,” the card said. It was signed “Robin.”

I didn’t melt on the spot, but it was a near thing. Tears welled in my eyes, which I kept very wide open.

“It’s lovely,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Enjoy,” she said, waving a casual hand, and returned to her van, parked illegally outside the main library doors.

I held the card to my chest like a schoolgirl, while I beamed at the arrangement. If Robin had planned a blitz attack on my body and heart, he was going about it exactly right. I could only be glad he’d decided to proceed with his campaign.

After the freezing-cold misery of the last year, I had the feeling I was sitting by a warm fire.

That glow lasted all morning, with the exception of the few minutes it took to roust a reporter who came into the library to ask me how it felt to have been murdered by proxy, so to speak.

Sam took care of him pretty quickly, and I was grateful.

The incident did set me to thinking back to that morning at the courthouse. I recalled sitting in the sun, waiting for Angel. I watched Will speak to Celia, shove the door shut with one hand while he carried a cup of coffee in the other. I watched Mark knock at the door in vain. Had Celia been angry with him? Had she already had the drugged coffee, begun feeling drowsy?

Had she just been in the bathroom and unable to come to the door? Then the woman—Sarah Feathers, Arthur had told me—just barely opening the trailer door and speaking a few words, shutting it again. Then I’d lost a few minutes of surveillance while I talked to Carolina. Then I’d gone to Tracy’s table in front of the Molly’s van, watched her change jackets, had the orange juice. All trivial stuff.