I showed her where to stow her belongings, which seemed to be primarily food items, and we were under way before Eddie got in more than three complaints.
“This is going to be so much fun,” Kelsey said, reaching forward to scratch Eddie’s head through his carrier’s wire door. “I’m glad you let me ride along.”
Let her? I’d almost wept with gratitude when she’d said she wanted to go. I absolutely had to find some real volunteers. Using the library staff on their days off wasn’t a good policy in many ways.
“I brought all sorts of stuff,” Kelsey was saying. “I wasn’t sure what you liked to eat for snacks, so I packed apples and crackers and cheese and grapes and yogurt.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And don’t tell my kids, but I brought potato chips and dip for this afternoon.”
There were definite advantages to having the mother of small children as your volunteer. I didn’t want to tell Kelsey that normally we didn’t bother to eat snacks on the bookmobile—it wouldn’t do to appear ungrateful—so I thanked her and started talking about the day’s events.
“Our first two stops are home deliveries. After that we have a school stop, a church stop, a stop for lunch, and two township hall stops.”
Ten minutes later, we were at Mrs. Salvator’s house, which had a nice, short driveway. I told Kelsey she could make the first delivery. “There’s just one thing,” I cautioned. “It’s easy to get chatting, and ten minutes is all we’ve scheduled for this stop.”
“Got it, Chief.” Kelsey saluted me, zipped up her coat, and picked up the plastic bag I’d stuffed with books the day before and labeled with the woman’s last name. “I’ll be back in plenty of time.”
As I watched her knock on the door, then go inside, as per Mrs. Salvator’s instructions, I eyed Eddie. “Think she’ll make it?”
He yawned, flattening his ears and showing sharp white teeth.
“I agree. That’s why the stop is really scheduled for twenty minutes.”
“Mrr,” Eddie said, which I took as cat applause for my outstanding management skills.
Sure enough, Kelsey came trotting out of the house a little more than fifteen minutes after she’d gone in. “Sorry,” she gasped. “But she was telling me all about this book she’d just finished, and I didn’t want to walk out on her, you know?”
I did. And that was why I’d made the home-delivery stops twice as long as I’d originally planned. It wasn’t as efficient, but we were providing something more than books.
The next home stop had a long, narrow, and hilly driveway. I eyed it, considered my bookmobile-backing skills, and decided to walk up. “I’ll take this one,” I said.
“Does Eddie get snack time?” Kelsey asked.
I pointed to the cabinet I’d recently stocked. “Top shelf. But don’t give him too many. He’s prone to carsickness if he eats too much.”
“This handsome cat?” Kelsey leaned down to look in the carrier. “Carsick?”
“Mrr,” Eddie said.
I ignored him and headed out.
Halfway up the gravel drive, the plastic bags had become heavy enough to make my fingers cramp. “More things they didn’t talk about in college,” I muttered as I tromped up the back steps of Barton Raftery’s fieldstone house. Then again, in college they hadn’t told me how much fun it would be to run a bookmobile outreach program, so I decided to call it a draw.
I opened the back door and stuck my head inside. “Knock, knock,” I called.
“Come on in,” came Barton’s voice.
“Shoes off?” I asked.
“Only if they’re dirty,” he said.
I picked up one foot and eyed the sole of my light boot. Not visibly dirt encrusted, but better to be safe than sorry. I kicked them off and padded to the living room.
“Minnie,” Barton said from his recliner. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
Barton, in his mid-seventies, with a shock of white hair and a broad build, was a regular at the library. Every week he checked out a stack of books—heavy on the thrillers, with a smattering of literary fiction and religious history—and only hip-replacement surgery had kept him away.
“It’s not me you want,” I said, emptying the bags onto the coffee table, “so much as these books.”
“Now, now,” he said, reaching for a Daniel Silva novel, “a pretty girl makes anything better.”
I handed him a copy of the latest release from Stuart Woods. “Brand-new. You’re the first one to read it.”
“Ahh, you know how to treat a man right. I tell you what, when I’m all healthy, I’ll come out with you on the bookmobile. See if my wife gets jealous.”
I smiled, but it must not have been very convincing, because Barton said, “Hey, now. What’s the matter?”
One glance at my watch told me I didn’t have time to tell the whole story of the library board’s intentions regarding the bookmobile, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, but Barton was a nice man and deserved a response, so I said, “I’m still a little upset over Roger Slade.”
Barton gave me a look. “Couldn’t have been easy,” he said. “Finding him and all.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
We shared a short silence, while I thought about Roger and Denise and responsibility and blame and motivations and possibilities too wretched to think about.
“Want to hear a story?” Barton asked. “And it’s not about that witchy Denise, either.”
Of course I wanted to hear a story. Didn’t everyone? “Sure.”
He nodded at me to sit down, so I perched on the edge of the coffee table. “Let me tell you something about Roger,” Barton said. “A demon behind the wheel of a car, that one. Did you know that he totaled three cars one summer?”
My chin dropped. “Roger Slade?”
“A Ford Mustang, a Pontiac Lemans, and a beat up old Firebird.” He sighed. “Too bad about that Mustang. It was a beauty.”
Roger had been a speed demon? That didn’t sit right with anything I knew about him. Maybe he wasn’t the nice guy everyone thought he was. Maybe he had hidden depths that he would have gone to great lengths to hide. Maybe, in spite of the hat, Denise wasn’t the intended target. Maybe—
“Then again,” Barton said, “with some work, that LeMans could have been a show car. Can’t believe his dad let him drive it in the first place.”
His dad? I squinted at Barton. “When did this happen?”
He furrowed his brow and stared at the ceiling. “Nineteen seventy-eight? Or was it ’seventy-nine? One of those.”
I’d been listening to a tale about Roger’s youthful indiscretions. “Nice story, Barton,” I said, standing, “but I don’t see what it has to do with Roger’s death.”
“Not a thing,” he said, frowning. “What made you think it might?”
“I’ll be back in three weeks for the books,” I said.
And I would be, whether it was by bookmobile or, if the worst happened, in my own little car, because even if I lost the bookmobile and my job, I would still make sure the books were returned to the library.
* * *
At the end of the day, I dropped Kelsey at her house with most of the snack packaging empty. “See you on Monday, Eddie,” she said, making kissy noises at him. “You, too, Minnie,” she said, and grinned, as I ducked away from any kiss she might send my way. “Any snack requests?”
“You don’t have to bring any,” I said halfheartedly. “Really, you don’t.”
“Do you like Rice Krispies treats?” she asked.
“Well . . .”
She laughed and waved good-bye. “Have a good weekend.”
When she was gone, I dropped the transmission back into drive and off we went.
“What do you think?” I asked Eddie. “Is Kelsey ready to quit working at the library so she can be a bookmobile volunteer?”
Eddie kept quiet.
“No opinion?” I asked. “Really? The world must be ending.”