Burtis had already started in on his breakfast. I added cream and sugar to my coffee and took a long sip. It was hot and strong, just the way I liked it.
“What are you doin’ here so early?” he asked. “And don’t tell me it’s for the pleasure of my company, because I may have been born at night but it wasn’t last night.”
“I do like your company,” I said, “but there is something I wanted to talk to you about. Actually, someone.”
“Leo Janes.” He nudged a bite of scrambled egg onto his fork with the half slice of toast he was holding in his massive left hand.
“Sort of,” I said.
That got me a smile. “Now, how exactly are we ‘sort of’ going to talk about Leo Janes?”
“By talking about Elias Braeden.”
“I heard he was in town on some kind of business,” Burtis said, spearing a chunk of fried potato. It disappeared into his mouth.
“Did you know him when you worked for Idris?” I asked.
Peggy came back with my plate then. It held bacon and sausage, fluffy scrambled eggs, Yukon gold potatoes fried with onions and whole wheat toast. She topped up our coffee and then headed toward the booths with the pot.
“I knew Elias back in the day,” Burtis said. “We don’t run in the same circles now.” He grinned at me.
“Do you think he could have had anything to do with Leo Janes’s death?” I asked. I picked up my fork and started eating. The eggs were fluffy and the potatoes tasted of onion and dill.
“Not likely,” Burtis said. “From what I know of Elias now, he’s more likely to bury you with lawyers and paperwork than he is to just have you buried somewhere.” He reached for his coffee cup. “I take it Leo was still playin’ cards.”
“Enough to get banned from more than one casino in the state.”
“And one of them belonged to Elias.”
I nodded. “Leo had some kind of system worked out. And it looks like there were other people involved.”
“He was smart as a whip, you know. He’d figure the odds of a certain card turning up in his head and then bet according to that. It gave him an edge, not to mention he had a hell of a poker face. How much did he take Elias for?”
“Around a million dollars.”
Burtis shook his head. “I don’t care for cheaters myself and I can imagine how Elias felt. It’s a wonder he left Leo with a pot to”—he gave me a sideways glance—“bake beans in,” he finished. “So you think what, Kathleen? That Elias had Leo killed over what he won?”
I reached for my coffee again. “I don’t know. Elias told me what he wanted to know was how Leo was cheating. He’d figured out that Leo had some of his students involved but beyond that . . .” I shrugged. “Do you think it’s possible they had an argument and things just got out of hand?” The image of the back of Leo Janes’s head flashed in my mind. “Tell me I’m crazy,” I said.
“You’re not,” he said. “Elias has come a long way from the days when he used to move beer through the back wood for old Blackie. I told you before, it wasn’t what the old man did, it was what people thought he did that kept ’em in line. Elias learned that lesson. He’s a respectable businessman now—more or less—but just because you take the boy outta those woods doesn’t mean you take the lessons he learned outta him.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thank you.”
We ate in silence for a couple of minutes. Then I felt Burtis’s eyes on me. “I hear you’ve been bragging about hanging around a few arcades in your younger days.”
I knew he was referring to my telling Marcus I could beat him at PAC-MAN. I gave an offhand shrug. “My mother always said it’s not bragging if you can do it.”
Burtis gave a snort of laughter. “That it isn’t,” he said.
We finished our breakfast and I told him about the box of photos from the old post office that the library had “inherited.” I lost the argument about paying for my own breakfast and I promised Burtis I would come out to the house to play a game of PAC-MAN with him, although I may have said I’d come out to beat him at a game of PAC-MAN. He left with a promise that he’d stop by the library once the photos were on display to see if he recognized anyone.
• • •
I took Celia Hunter’s scarf with me to the library and Marcus called midmorning to tell me she’d arrived at the station first thing, just the way she’d said she would. “It wasn’t her,” he said. “She’s too tiny to have hit Leo Janes.”
I made a face, glad that he couldn’t see me. Everything seemed to point back at Simon.
Mia came in right after school. Mary had brought in an album with the photos of Meredith Janes that she’d promised to show Mia.
“Is that your mother?” I asked Mary, pointing to a young woman leaning on a hoe and squinting into the sun in one photograph. It wasn’t so much that they looked alike, it was something about the way the young woman in the photo was standing, her unselfconscious stance, that made me think of Mary.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “She lived to be ninety years old, you know, and she was sharp as a tack until the day she died. In fact, if she’d stayed off the roof of the barn when it was raining she’d probably have made it to one hundred.”
Mia and I exchanged looks.
“But that’s a story for another day,” Mary said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. She flipped several pages in the album. “That’s your grandmother, Mia.”
Mia and I both leaned in for a closer look. Meredith Janes looked to be about sixteen in the photograph. She reminded me of Simon. She had the same challenge in her dark eyes.
“She was so beautiful,” Mia said softly.
“Inside and out,” Mary agreed.
We spent the next few minutes looking at the rest of the photos. There were several more of Meredith and one of Mary in a bathing suit with one hand on her hip and the other behind her head in a bathing beauty pose.
“Wow! Look at those legs,” I said admiringly. Harrison would have said Mary had legs up to her neck. In fact I recalled him using those exact words about her once.
“I’ve always been told they’re my best feature,” Mary said with a sly smile. She pulled an envelope out of her sweater pocket and handed it to Mia. “I made copies of the pictures of your grandmother. I thought you’d like to have them.”
“Thank you,” Mia said, her voice suddenly husky with emotion. She turned to me, both hands holding the envelope. “I’m just going to put these upstairs and then I’ll get started on the shelving.”
I nodded. “That’s fine.” I watched Mia head up the stairs. Then I turned to Mary. “That was really nice of you,” I said.
“I’m sorry she never got to know Merry. She really was special.”
“She must have been,” I agreed, “if she was friends with you.”
“You’re really shoveling it today,” Mary said, waving away my words with one hand, even as she was smiling at me.
About quarter to five, Victor Janes came into the building. I was dealing with a balky keyboard in our computer area. He stopped at the circulation desk to speak to Mia and I could see from her body language that she was uncomfortable. I got up and joined them.
“Hello, Victor,” I said.
He turned to me with a smile that seemed a little forced. “Good afternoon, Kathleen,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you. Could I help you find something specific?” I asked in my best friendly, helpful-librarian tone.
“I was hoping that Mia could help me,” he said.
I felt a surge of annoyance followed by a twinge of guilt. I didn’t like the man. Maggie would have said his energy was off and I felt the same way. On the other hand, I felt guilty for feeling that way about someone who had been fighting a serious illness.