But her skin was cold.
I swallowed, pushing myself to my feet.
And noticed the knife sticking out of the woman’s back.
Chapter 2
I called 911 straightaway, and the first police officer on the scene was from the Chilson Police Department. He took one look and called the police chief. When the police chief arrived, he took a slightly longer look, then called for the next level up, the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Department.
“We don’t have the staff or the training for a full-out murder investigation,” the city’s police chief said as we were waiting outside. “To tell you the truth, I’m happy to hand something like this over. Make one mistake and you can get a case tossed out of court. And the paperwork?” He shook his gray-haired head. “Inwood’s free to take this one, with my blessing.”
“Thanks so much.” Detective Inwood said.
How long he’d been standing behind us, I didn’t know. A gift for invisible lurking was probably an asset in his profession, but it creeped me out.
“Ms. Hamilton,” Inwood said, nodding. “You called this in, I hear?”
The detective and I had met a number of times, and while our working relationship had occasionally been strained, we were reaching a point where we could converse without me wanting to yell at him for being narrow-minded. Likewise, he hadn’t called me interfering in weeks. This was all very nice, because Ash, my new boyfriend, was standing next to and slightly behind Detective Inwood at what appeared to be the regulation distance for a deputy who was training to be a detective.
“That’s right,” I said.
Inwood looked at the police chief. “Have you identified the body?”
“Andrea Vennard,” he said. “Found her purse. Driver’s license says she lives downstate. Brighton.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “You want me to notify the relatives, Hal?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Inwood tipped his head in the direction of the library. “Ms. Hamilton, we’re going to have to—”
“I know,” I said hurriedly, not wanting to hear any details. “The whole library is a crime scene, and we won’t be able to open to the public until it’s been . . . cleared out.”
He nodded. “We’ll let you know when you can open.” He shook hands with the chief, opened the library’s front door, and stepped inside.
The police chief glanced my way. “Let me know if I can help, Ms. Hamilton,” he said, and returned to his vehicle.
For a moment, all was quiet. Birds chirped, leaves stirred in a slight breeze, and the sun shone down. It was June in northern lower Michigan, and it was a beautiful day.
“You okay?” Ash stepped close, his handsome square-jawed face frowning with concern.
Of course I wasn’t. I’d just seen a murdered woman on the floor of my library. And, once I’d called 911, it hadn’t felt right to leave her alone, so I’d had time to think about things far more than I’d wanted to, which included wondering how she’d gotten into the locked library. Then I’d wondered how the killer had managed to enter the locked library. This had been followed by the stark realization that the killer might possibly still be in the building, and I’d done the remainder of my waiting outside. On the sidewalk. Next to the street.
“I’m fine,” I said, summoning a smile. “Only, can I use my office? Now, I mean.”
He glanced at the door. “Let me check. I’ll be right back.”
My hand itched for my cell phone, but I’d left it in my office that morning, years ago, before I’d found Andrea. I’d called 911 from the reference desk.
For the moment, there was absolutely nothing I could do, so I sat on a nearby bench and did exactly that. Of course, now that I was sitting, all I could think about was that knife sticking out of that poor woman’s back and the puddle of red that—
“Minnie?” Ash was standing in front of me. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Fine,” I said as I jerked open my eyes. Far better to see the good-looking male specimen in front of me than recall the morning’s earlier sight. “Did you ask about getting into my office? I need to make phone calls.”
“You’re good to go.” He held out his hand and helped me to my feet. “But you’ll have to stay in there until we’re done.”
I held on to his hand for a moment, welcoming the warmth of his skin. He reached out and gave me a half hug with his other arm. My cheek mushed uncomfortably against his badge, but I didn’t mind. “Thanks,” I said, smiling a little as he released me. “I needed that.”
He gave the top of my head a quick kiss. “I did, too,” he said. “Just don’t tell the boss.”
“Detective Inwood or Sheriff Richardson?”
Though he’d half smiled when I said the detective’s name, he blanched when I mentioned the sheriff. “Not her,” he said. “Anyone but her.”
I almost laughed. Kit Richardson was fiftyish and formidable, and everyone except me seemed to be scared of her. Which wasn’t a bad attribute for a sheriff to have, I supposed, but somehow the fear hadn’t made its way to me. “She’s not as scary as you think she is,” I said.
Ash made a fast move and opened the front door for me. “Don’t see how that’s possible,” he said. When we were inside, he turned the dead bolt. “The techs will be here soon. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”
I started to ask how long that might be, but stopped myself. They’d get done when they were finished, and that was all I truly needed to know. “Thanks.” I kept my gaze away from what I knew still lay in the library, and walked purposefully to my office.
Stephen was gone. There was no library director. It was up to me to do what needed to be done.
So I went to do it.
* * *
Three hours later, I’d talked to the library’s board of directors and the entire library staff, touched base with a couple of the major donors, and told the newspaper and both the local television news programs that we were “deeply saddened, and have complete confidence that the sheriff’s office will bring the murderer to justice soon.”
I leaned back in my chair, thinking. Just as I was coming to the internal conclusion that there was no one else I needed to talk to, the phone rang.
For a moment, I debated letting it go into voice mail. For another moment, I wished the library’s budget stretched to caller identification. Then, since I could almost see my mother frowning at me, arms crossed and foot tapping, I reached for the receiver and picked it up. “Chilson District Library. This is Minnie speaking.”
“And you were going to call me when?” a severe female voice asked.
I flopped back into my chair, pulled out a low desk drawer, and put my feet up. “Why didn’t you call my cell if you were so eager to talk?”
“Did,” Kristen said. “A zillion times.”
“It’s so refreshing to talk to someone who never exaggerates.”
“And it’s so nice to know that I’m last on the list of people you’ll call in an emergency.”
“Not last,” I corrected. “That would be my mom.” Because as much as I loved my mother, she wasn’t much help in a crisis. She was great at hugs and sympathetic tears and cooking up comfort food, but for straight-out practical help, not so much.
“True enough.”
I heard a muted thumping noise and knew Kristen was in her restaurant’s kitchen, chopping up who knew what for lunch. Kristen had a PhD in biochemistry and had once worked for a major pharmaceutical company, but she’d chucked it all to come home to Chilson and run a restaurant that specialized in serving locally grown foods.
During the restaurant’s conception stages, she’d been pulling out her long—and straight—blond hair over the lack of local fresh foods available in winter. I’d suggested that since she hated snow anyway, to just close the place in winter. This had given the place its name, Three Seasons, and given Kristen an opportunity to spend the cold, snowy months in Key West, where she did some bartending on the weekends and as little as possible during the week.