Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 02 - Apple Pots and Funeral Plots (9 page)

I tapped Bill on the shoulder.
“I haven’t seen that business around here.
Where is it located?”

“Oh, they don’t have a shop.
It’s just a wholesaler of the apple pots.
People order them from all over the country and he ships them out.”

Then Bill pointed down the street.
“Here come your friends.”

At least a hundred clowns
tumbled and danced
down the street.
If that weren’t bad enough, the clowns were followed by two dozen or so mimes.
If clowns are scary, mimes are worse.
My body shuddered and I stood up.
“That’s my cue.
I’m going to the library.”

“Chicken.”
Bill grinned.

“Thanks for the chair and the coffee, Bill.”

“Any time.
See you later, Liza.”

I waved, walked away from the clowns and into the center of the town to the library.
It was an exquisite, older building, maybe even over a hundred years old.
In the front were huge wooden double doors with
wrought
iron handles.
Each side of the building had several carved pillars.
The sign on the door said
Closed for t
he Parade
but the door was unlocked, so I walked in.
The place was eerily quiet, like most libraries.
It was enormous on the inside, with rows and rows of books on all sides.
The center had ten or twelve round tables with four chairs each.

It would take me quite a while to wander around and actually locate Edith.
It was quicker to just yell.
“Hello!”

A woman dressed in blue jeans and a white collared shirt came around the corner of a bookshelf.
She was close to my height and age with short brown hair.
“Hello?”

I waved at her.
“Are you Edith?”
She walked over and I extended my hand.
“My name is Liza Wilcox and I’m a friend of Danielle Slammers.”

Edith took my hand and shook it.
“Danielle’s dead.”

“That’s why I’m here.
I want to find out what happened to her.”

“Good luck.
Crime doesn’t happen very often in Clainsworth, but when it does, it never gets solved!” she snapped, then turned and walked away.

Chapter 10

“Wait!”
I followed after Edith.
“I still have some questions.”

“Fine,” she shrugged.
“Come on up to my office.”

I trailed behind her as she negotiated around several bookshelves into a small office in the back of the library.
The floor was covered with stacks of children’s books.
She glanced down.
“I’m re-organizing the children’s books by reading levels.
It’s an idea I got from a library in
New York
.
It will help the parents know which books to steer their children to read.”

“Sounds like a good idea.
I’m a teacher and I might just do the same thing at my school library.
When my students go to the library they always choose books with cool pictures, but most can’t even begin to read them.
If I had books by levels, then they could check out the ones they could actually read.”

She pointed to a wooden chair in front of her desk.
“Have a seat.”

“Thanks.”
I sat down and she sat at her desk, which was piled with more books.

Edith separated the piles, so we could see each other.
She shrugged.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be in today.
I thought everyone would be at the parade.”

“I was there for awhile.
Bill told me that you’d be in today.
He said you didn’t like the parade.”

“It’s all a scam to sell apple pots.
That’s what this whole town is about.”
She shook her head and frowned.
“It’s all very sad.”

“Why?”

“This town used to be about the people who lived here.
It was a community that worked together to keep the town thriving.
Now it’s apple pots, apple pots, and more apple pots.
My parents thought they were stupid, too.
And frankly, I’m sick of them.”

“Why do you stay?”

“I was born here, raised here and will probably die here.”
She glanced out her office door.
“This library is my family’s legacy.
Who’s going to keep it going if I leave?”

“Your mother was a librarian.”

“For forty-two years. We worked together for seventeen years.
Then she was killed.
Now she’s with Dad and I’m keeping her library open.”

“I thought she died in a fire?”

“Yeah, that’s the town’s story.”

“But not yours?”

She shook her head.
“Absolutely not.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Someone hit her on the back of the head, lit our family home on fire, and then watched it burn to the ground.”

“Why do you think so?”

“My dad built that house.
He knew the sawdust he used for insulation would be highly flammable.
He made sure all of the timbers were reinforced.
That’s why the house burned so long.
The structure refused to give way.
They eventually had to bring in a bulldozer to tear it down.”

“Why would someone want to kill your mother?”

“I don’t know.”
She shook her head.
Her tone was low but intent.

“I heard that Danielle
asked a lot of
questions about your mom.”

“Yes, she said she didn’t believe the story about her being killed in the fire, either.”

“Why?”

“She never said.
Just that she was interested in finding out what really happened to my mom and why.”

Maybe if I followed the same path as Danielle, I’d figure out what really happened to her.
And the trail started with Edith’s mother.
“Edith, will you tell me about your mom?”

“Sure,” she smiled and leaned back in her chair.
“Both she and my dad were born here, went to school here, were married here, and had one daughter – me.”

“Was she always a librarian?”

“Yeah, my great grandmother opened the library in 1901.
My mother started working when she was eighteen, around 1953.
And I started working here twenty years ago when I was eighteen.”

“And your dad?”

“He hated the library.
In fact he didn’t like any building.
He said they always looked the same and never changed.”
She smiled.
“What my dad really loved was exploring.
He was always dragging me to a river or lake just to see how it had changed from our last visit.
But his favorite places to explore were caves.”

“Bill told me he was a spelunker.”

“One of the best.
Unfortunately, we don’t have too many around here, so he explored the old mine shafts.”

“Bill also told me that’s how he died.”

“That’s just another crime in Clainsworth that never was solved.”

“You don’t think your dad had an accident in the mine?”

“Never.
He could walk blindfolded through those mines and had spent his life reinforcing the shafts that needed it.
There’s no way he would have gone into a shaft that would have given way and trapped him in.
And even if that had happened, unlikely as it is, he would have known a way out.
My dad was big on having several options for going in and out of any cave or mine shaft.”

“So why would someone kill your dad?”

She shrugged.
“I don’t know that either.”

“Didn’t the cops investigate the death of your parents?”

“In their own way – which means they did nothing.”

“Why not?”

“Lazy.
My mom and dad didn’t really matter to them.”
A tear ran down her cheek.

I reached over and touched her arm.
“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Can you tell me about the days before your mom died?”

She wiped the tear and sat up straight in the chair.
“Sure.”

“The cops said she called in several false reports.”

“My mom took my dad’s death really hard.
They were like twins.
What one felt, so did the other.
I have never seen two people so much in love.”

“And when your dad died?”

“Mom just fell apart.
She closed the lumberyard and retreated into herself.”

“She didn’t come to the library anymore?”

“At first she did, but after a couple of years she stopped.
She’d just sit in their house.
It’s like she
waited
to die and be with Dad again.
I would have believed suicide before a knock on the head and smoke inhalation.”

“Tell me about the reports to the cops.”

“She was a little paranoid in the end.”
Her tone softened.
“She kept saying she heard people sneaking around the town and in the forest late at night.”

“Did you ever check it out yourself?”

“Several times.
I never found anyone or any evidence that anyone was ever there.
After four or five calls in the middle of the night, I stopped coming, too.
I’d just tell her I didn’t find anything.
There just wasn’t anything to find.”

“And the night before she died?”

“It was the same thing.
I got a call about two in the morning.
She told me people were driving up
Main Street
with their lights off and then going into the woods behind our house.”

“Did you check it out?”

“No. But I do live a few blocks off of
Main Street
, so I opened my window, but I couldn’t hear any engines.”
She shook her head.
“There weren’t any cars coming up
Main Street
or people in the woods.”

“I’m sorry about your parents.
Both of mine were killed in an airplane crash, so I know how it feels to become an orphan, even when you’re older.”

She nodded.
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her, so I stood up and extended my hand.
“Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“If you think of anything else that Danielle and you talked about, would you let me know?”

“Of course.
Where are you staying?”

“At the Motor Inn.”

She furrowed her brows.
“That’s where Danielle stayed.”

“Yes, I wanted to get a feel for the place.”

“I know it’s been totally remodeled, but isn’t it kind of eerie to know that she died there?”

“Actually I’m staying in her room.
I
hoped
it would give me some clues.
But you’re right, everything is new.”

She huffed.
“That’s the power of the apple pot.
Once a year everyone gets a check and remodels their homes and businesses.”

“What about you?
Do you get a check?”

“I suppose I will now, since my mom and dad are both gone.
The head of each household receives a check every July.
But I don’t plan on ever cashing it.”
A slight smile crossed her face.
“Maybe I’ll have a fire of my own.”

“I guess it’s your check.
You can do whatever you want with it.
Thanks again, Edith.”
I waved goodbye and let myself out of the library.
The parade was finished and three street sweepers were cleaning up.
I had to hand it to the town; they took their street cleanliness more seriously than
Disneyland
.

I walked back to the Motor Inn, got
Shelby
, and the keys to Kate’s car.
“Let’s go for a drive.”

With the parade finished, the businesses in town
started
to open.
The shops
put
tables filled with merchandise ou
t in the front of their doors to try
to entice customers to come in and browse.
Street vendors appeared, selling drinks, candy, ice cream, and souvenirs from the festival.
Kate and Ted walked
up the street with huge waffle cones filled with ice cream
. I
waved at them.

Kate motioned me to pull over, her face lit in a huge smile
.
“Isn’t my car cool?
How do you like driving it?”

“It’s really nice.
I have to buy a new one.
Maybe I’ll consider getting a Mustang.”

“Where are you going?”
Ted asked, as he licked the side of his hand that was covered in dripping vanilla ice cream.

“I thought I’d take a ride over and look at where Sally’s house had been.”

“Do you know where you’re going?”
Kate asked.

“It’s on the outskirts of town, right?”

“Just take Main Street all the way to the end.
It dead-ends on a street called
Apple Way
.
Take a right and go down about a couple of miles.
You can’t miss the big hole.”

“Thanks, Kate.”

“Take care of my car.”

“I will.”
I waved and pulled away from the curb.
As I drove down Main Street, I noticed several more groups of men.
They must be eating contestants, since they didn’t look like locals or families here for the festival.
Is there an advantage to not having a neck in an eating contest?
A few blocks later, I saw a group of Latino men and even an Asian group.
Bill had said the eating contests brought contestants in from all over the world.
I couldn’t wait to watch one.

At the end of
Main Street
I could see the booths and carnival rides being set up in a massive open field to the left.
It looked like they
would
have all the usual rides.
At the moment, they
assembled the
Ferris wheel and pieces kept falling down.
I never felt that safety was high on the carnival’s list of requirements and watching the pieces fall renewed my vow of never riding one.
I took a right turn and continued down
Apple Way
.

A mile down the road and on the right hand side was a cemetery.
It was massive with tall statues, immense gravestones, and surrounded by an enormous black iron fence.
Tall trees were planted throughout the cemetery and fresh flowers were laid on each gravesite.
Was this part of the festival renovation, too?
I pulled over and parked the car.