“No, no,” I said quickly. “We were driving past in the bookmobile and saw a car in the driveway. I just wanted to be sure everything was okay since I didn’t think anyone was here.”
She smiled. Not a huge one, but it was unmistakably a smile. “It’s nice that you cared enough to stop. Do you want to come in?”
I glanced at Julia and she nodded. Since the outside temperature was maybe fifteen degrees and the wind was kicking up, I was in full agreement. “Thanks. Just for a minute, though. I like to get back to Chilson before dark.” In theory, the days were getting longer, but on thick cloud cover days like this, it was hard to believe in the sun at all.
Inside, we stood in the front hallway. “I had a couple of days off from school,” Anya said, “so I decided to come home.” She sighed. “It’s just so weird, with Mom gone. They say I’ll get used to it, but I can’t even park inside the garage. It’s where her car is . . .”
I reached out and gave her a long, hard hug. Whoever was giving her advice was an idiot. You never got used to losing someone you loved. You learned to live with it, is all.
Julia snorted as only an award-winning actor can snort. “Get used to it? Utter nonsense. You will adjust, but it takes time. Lots of time. Be patient with yourself. And even years from now, you might have crying jags that come out of nowhere. Grief is triggered by the oddest things. Two years after my dad died, I bawled my eyes out over a hammer.”
I looked at her and mouthed, A hammer? She shrugged.
“Thanks.” Anya sniffed. “I’m kind of a mess, but I’m dealing. It’s Collier I’m worried about.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“He’s skipping a lot of classes. Not even showing up to take tests.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “He says he’s fine, but I know he’s not. His roommate and his fiancée say all he does is play video games and sleep. The only thing he talks about is how whoever killed Mom should be in jail.”
Anya took a deep breath and looked at me. “Are you any closer to figuring that out? I’m sure Collier would get better if that guy was in jail. It’s eating him alive that her killer is walking around free while Mom is . . . while Mom isn’t.”
“The police are working on narrowing down the suspects,” I said, hating how that sounded. “And I just passed on some information they’re looking into.”
“Really?” Her face brightened. “When do you think they’ll make an arrest?”
Her obvious excitement startled me. “I really don’t know. As soon as they can, I’m sure.”
“That’s great,” she said. “I’ll tell Collier right away. This has been so hard for him. He and Mom were really close, and it’s hard that he’s going to get married this summer. Mom won’t be at his wedding, see?”
I did. But it didn’t do to have unrealistic expectations, either. “You should hold off on telling Collier anything about the investigation,” I cautioned. “Say the police are working hard. Say I’m helping. But I don’t think they have enough of a case yet to arrest anyone.”
Anya deflated. “Oh. Okay,” she said, and the tremble of her lower lip nearly broke my heart. Right then and there I renewed my vow to do whatever I could to track down her mom’s killer.
I gave her a quick hug and said we needed to get going. Then, remembering what I’d learned yesterday, I asked, “I saw Bax Tousely the other day. Didn’t the two of you used to date?”
Anya’s face turned the faintest shade of pink. “I don’t . . . we don’t . . .” She took a breath. “I haven’t seen him since high school graduation.”
Hmm, I thought.
Julia must have had the same thought, because once we were back on the bookmobile, she said, “Looks like Anya still has a thing for Bax, in spite of that unfortunate Valentine’s Day episode.”
“Looks like it,” I said, and hoped for Anya’s sake that he wasn’t also a killer. Because if making an arrest for Rowan’s murder would help Collier, if the killer was Bax, it might crush Anya.
• • •
Julia and I lugged the crates of returned books into the room dedicated to the bookmobile’s separate book collection. The work was by far the worst part of running outreach, but it didn’t take all that long, especially with Julia’s ability to distract me with stories of her theater days.
“You do realize,” I said, double-checking the computer to make sure the small stack of books checked out of main circulation and returned to the bookmobile matched the list on the screen, “that if you ever run out of theater stories, I’ll have to fire you.”
She smiled. “I ran out a long time ago. I’ve been making them up for the last six months.” And with that, she waved and left, leaving me to wonder whether or not she’d been joking.
As I finished up the last of the day’s tasks, I finally decided. “She was joking,” I said out loud to Eddie, but he was in his carrier and fast asleep.
I squatted down and peered in. He looked as if he could sleep for hours. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I whispered. Eddie didn’t move, so I felt hardly any guilt at all for what I was about to do. Hurrying a bit, I headed to my office. All I wanted to do was make a single phone call, and the cell phone reception in the bookmobile collection room was horrible. I had only a few minutes to make the call so what I really needed to do was sneak into my office without anyone noticing I was in the building and—
“Minnie, you are just the person I wanted to see.”
And I was toast. Dry burned toast.
I pasted a smile on my face and turned to my accoster. “Hey, Denise. What’s up?”
Denise Slade was president of the Friends of the Library. It was a wonderful organization and running the library would be far more difficult without their efforts, but Denise could be a trial. She’d been widowed not that long ago, and I kept reminding myself of that sad fact, over and over, to help me be more understanding.
“What are you going to do about that new boss of yours?” she asked, standing with her hands on her wide hips. Energetic and confident, Denise had a take-charge kind of personality. Which was fine, of course, but since she also had the sense of humor of a rusty metal bucket, she had a tendency to irritate people.
“Help him in every way possible,” I said.
“Oh, pfft.” Denise flicked away my comment. “Don’t give me that politically correct crap. What I want to know is why he and that new guy, Trent What’s-His-Name, are running around asking such weird questions.”
“Weird in what way?”
“Oh, you know. Just weird.”
A deep urge to be scathingly sarcastic bubbled up, but I shoved it down. “Do you remember any of their questions?”
“It was a couple of days ago, so I don’t remember word for word, but one of the things Graydon was asking about was the importance of the Friends of the Library. I mean, what kind of question is that!” She flung her hands out. “We’re critical! Without us, you couldn’t do half what you do.”
Although I didn’t agree with her math, I smiled and nodded encouragingly. “What else?”
“That Trent character—and aren’t those names just the last straw? Graydon and Trent. They sound like the name of an attorney’s office—anyway, Trent asked if we’d ever done a survey of library patrons on what they think of the Friends, if we should be doing more, if we should be doing less.”
It was an interesting question. “Have you?”
“Of course not.” Denise sounded disgusted. “We don’t have time to do that kind of crap. Besides, surveys are for organizations that aren’t in touch with the people they serve. We don’t need to do that.”
Again, I didn’t agree with her, but disagreeing with Denise was something you did only if you had a spare hour, because she’d do her best to sway you to her side, even if you were disagreeing with her on the merits of the variety of cheese that best accompanied a hamburger.