He nodded. “Well, I’m glad you texted me. Let’s make that standard operating procedure in bad weather.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” One of these days I was going to finish revising the library policies regarding the bookmobile. Before my former boss had approved the purchase of the bookmobile, I’d been required to put a number of policies in place. There had to be two library staff members on board at all times. That the driver must have a commercial driver’s license. And on and on. I’d done the best I could, but now that we’d been on the road for a year and a half, it was time to adjust things. I also wanted to rewrite the job descriptions for the driver and the assistant, adding core competencies. And the pre-run and post-run checklists could stand an update. Now that winter had dug in, I was a little nervous about the rear door’s keypad access working in extreme cold. We didn’t use the rear door, which was the handicapped entrance, all that much, but when we did need it, there was no substitute. “I’ll run the revised policy past you when I get a draft done.”
“This week?”
“Um . . .”
Graydon smiled. “Trent is reviewing all of the library’s policies. As the new board chair, it makes sense. But if we’re going to make changes to the bookmobile policy, it would be best to have it in front of him as soon as possible.”
I did the best I could to hide my complete and utter dismay. Policy revision was not my favorite task. In fact, it was near the bottom of my Least Favorite library chores and was another reason I’d decided against applying for the director position. “In that case, I’ll move policy revision to the top of my list.”
Graydon seemed satisfied and went away, but my happy mood had shifted and I realized that I was going to have to resort to serious measures to get it back. I was going to have to ignore the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d brought for lunch and go to Shomin’s Deli instead.
• • •
No one else wanted to go back out into the weather, so I left the library solo. I carried a book with me wherever I went, just in case I had to spend more than ten seconds waiting for anything ever, but off season I preferred to eat my meals with someone. In winter, Chilson’s population dropped by ninety percent, and most of us year-rounders tended to huddle together, especially in January.
“Well, hello there, Miss Librarian!” Pam Fazio, owner of Older Than Dirt, a retail establishment that was partly antiques, partly shoes, partly kitchen wares, and all fun, waved at me from a booth. “Come sit with me.”
I didn’t even bother looking at the chalkboard menu. “Hey, Mike,” I said to the twenty-something behind the counter. “Swiss cheese and olives on sourdough, please, with root beer.” After paying, I slid into the booth across from Pam. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” I said.
Pam looked down at herself. “Same clothes. Same haircut. What do you see as different?”
This was true. Same short black hair, same top-notch fashion sense, even in January. However, there was one massive change. “Might be the only time I’ve seen you without coffee in your hand.”
She glowered. “Stupid doctor. Just because I’m ‘of a certain age,’ I’m suddenly supposed to start thinking about my caffeine intake? Why now?”
“Because you can only get away with abusing your body for so long before it catches up to you?”
“Wait your turn,” she said darkly. “Hit fifty and you’re in a whole new demographic. It’s all different.”
“Didn’t you turn fifty two years ago?”
“Three, but who’s counting?” She grinned, but it slipped away as something across the room caught her attention. “That’s odd. I thought he was gone.”
I turned and saw Neil Bennethum, Rowan’s husband, place an order with Mike. “Is it okay if he joins us?” I asked. At Pam’s nod, I got up and invited Neil over. After a pause, he nodded. “Thanks.”
The three of us settled down, Pam and myself on one side of the booth, Neil on the other. “I thought you’d gone downstate,” Pam said. “Back to work.”
Neil picked at a hangnail. “I tried, but couldn’t concentrate. They gave me a leave of absence so I’m headed down to Chicago to visit my brother and his family. Then . . . we’ll see.”
“I’m so sorry,” Pam said.
“Yes. Well.” Neil seemed to shrink. “I can’t sleep at the house. I tried, but . . .” He shook his head. “The last couple of nights I stayed with my sister in town.” He gave a wan smile and tapped his rounded midsection. “You know what’s funny? For years my doctor was on my case to lose fifty pounds. Now I’ve dropped ten in the last week. Who knew there could be a benefit to something like this?”
I inched forward. “Neil, did you see my text? I was at your house yesterday.”
“You were?” He stared at me blankly. “My phone . . . so many people are texting me about Rowan.” He looked at the table and muttered, “I haven’t been looking at it much lately.”
Pam and I exchanged a glance. The man was not doing well. “Your house,” I said brightly, “was a port in the storm,” and explained about the bookmobile and the freezing rain. Then, after a quick moment, I told him I’d found something odd and called the police.
“What did you find?” he asked.
Of course he asked. How could he not? But I hesitated. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to talk about it. Part of the investigation.”
Neil made a rude noise. “What investigation? I told Hal Inwood exactly who killed Rowan, but does he do anything about it? No. All they have to do is arrest him. They tell me it’s all under investigation, but I don’t see anything happening. Another reason it’ll be good for me to leave town—if they don’t arrest him soon, I might do something to him myself.”
Pam and I exchanged glances. “You know who killed her?” Pam asked.
“The week before Rowan died,” Neil said, his face flushing, “she and Land had a huge fight. A big blowup. She fired him and he threatened her. Said she’d regret firing him, and soon.”
“Land Aprelle?” I asked. But it had to be. There weren’t many men named Land wandering around the world. For decades he’d been a contractor, putting up houses and pole barns and anything else people hired him to build. Now that he was in his sixties and had had a knee and a shoulder replacement, he’d shifted to handyman and caretaking services. He was a longtime library patron and had happily taken advantage of the bookmobile the first week it was on the road. People who used the library and bookmobile weren’t guaranteed to be upright and honest citizens, but in my mind the odds were better.
“Rowan hired him to do chores after I started working downstate,” Neil said. “She wanted me to have real weekends, not weekends working on the house. She said we could afford it, that it would give us more time together, that—”
He stopped. Swallowed. “If I hadn’t taken that job, I would have been home. She never would have hired him. She wouldn’t be . . .” His voice trailed off and a vast silence filled the booth.
My heart ached for him. I wanted to give him a hug, or at least hold his hand, but we were barely more than acquaintances and I didn’t want to weird him out. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly, because there wasn’t much else I could do.
“Thanks,” he said. “Rowan really liked you. Both of you,” he said, finally looking up at us. “She didn’t like everyone, but she liked you two.”
“And I liked her. Her sense of humor was just like my dad’s.” I swung around to face Pam. “And yours, too, come to think of it.”
Pam laughed. “So that’s why the three of us got along so well. A warped worldview.”
“Lots of folks didn’t get when she was making a joke,” Neil said. “She got on the wrong side of people for that.”
The back of my neck tingled. “Anyone in particular?”