No, this morning Mitchell was after gossip about Stan, just like everyone else.
I stopped in front of the checkout counter. “I’ll say this once and only once.” I looked around. Half the staff was still mingling, eating doughnuts and dropping crumbs into the carpet. “You guys might as well listen, too. Yes, I found Stan Larabee. Since he was already dead, he told me nothing about his killer and he left no clues about his killer. And I didn’t know about his will. I didn’t even know he had a will.”
“What will?” Mitchell asked. “Did he leave you a bunch of money or something?”
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, swallowing down the sniffs that were suddenly coming, “I have work to do.” Then, like Stephen, I left. Only I doubted that after his speech he hurried down to the bookmobile’s circulation room and bawled his eyes out.
• • •
My unexpected crying attack didn’t last long, but by the time I’d washed my face and made my way back upstairs, two representatives from the sheriff’s office were at the circulation desk getting a list of employees from Holly. One was tall and thin, the other short and stout. Both looked close to retirement age. Mr. and Mr. Sprat.
Holly Terpening was my best library friend in spite of the many differences between us. She was about my age, but was happily married, loved to cook, had two small children, a dog, and straight brown hair, and was average in height, which meant she was six inches taller than I was. Though the only commonality we shared was the love of the same books, it turns out that’s enough for a strong friendship.
“Are you going to want to talk to all of us?” Holly stared at the officers. “Why? I mean, none of us knew anything about the will before this morning.”
The officers exchanged a quick glance. Hmm. Had Stephen committed a faux pas in giving us that information?
I shook my head. Too many television plots were rattling around inside my skull. I didn’t know the first thing about the real-life behavior of law enforcement officers and wished it could have stayed that way.
“This one.” The tall officer pointed at a name. “That’s who we want to talk to first. Minerva Hamilton.”
I rubbed at my eyes. Dry this time. Excellent. I pasted on a smile and went to talk to the officers.
• • •
Come midafternoon, Holly and Josh and I found ourselves in the break room at the same time. Josh shoved dollar bills into the soda pop machine and pushed buttons. “What’d they ask you?” The machine clunked out three cans of diet cola. One can went into the left side pocket of his baggy cargo shorts, another went into the right side pocket, and he popped the top on the third and started drinking.
I shrugged. “The same questions the deputy asked on Friday afternoon. Why was I there, what did I see, that kind of stuff.” Over and over and over again. The only things I’d gleaned from the recent conversation was that the weapon had been a rifle and the uncomfortable knowledge that the killer had been waiting in the farmhouse for Stan to approach. This was why the back door had been open. Broken open, they’d said, with scuff marks from a boot and a fist to prove it. My hesitant question about getting prints or DNA from a fist had earned me polite smiles and what felt like a pat on the head. “Sorry, Ms. Hamilton. There was nothing to get off that door.”
Josh lowered his soda can. “Did they ask if you knew about Larabee’s will?”
“I said up front that I didn’t know about it.”
“Jeez, Minnie, you’re not supposed to volunteer information. Everybody knows that.”
Josh, as the only male on full-time staff under the age of fifty, sometimes took on the persona of Man of the World. The fact that he’d never set foot outside of Michigan’s borders didn’t dent his attitude at all.
“They were going to ask me anyway. What difference does it make?”
He shook his head and took another drink.
“What did they ask you, Josh?” Holly looked at the vending machine that was filled with chips and candy bars and turned away. “It didn’t seem like you were in there very long.”
“Nah.” Josh leaned back against the table I’d talked Stephen into buying. “Did you know they were detectives, not deputies?”
I had, actually, and I was sure Holly knew, too. That is, unless the officers had been misrepresenting themselves when they’d introduced themselves as Detectives Devereaux and Inwood.
Holly pressed Josh. “What did they ask you?”
“Not much.” He glugged down more soda. “Did I know Larabee? No. Did I know about the will? No. Do I have any idea who’d want to kill him? No, not unless Stephen wanted to get his hands on that money sooner rather than later.”
“Josh Hadden!” I cried. “You didn’t!”
He smirked. “Would have been fun if I had. Just think of it, Stephen considered a person of interest, his reputation shattered. The board loses confidence, and—”
“Stop it,” I commanded. “That’s not funny at all.”
“Sure it is,” he said, laughing.
I glanced at Holly. She’d slumped into a chair. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“They asked me a lot of questions,” she said dully. “Lots more than they asked either of you.”
That was weird. “Why would they have more questions for you?”
She fiddled with the collar of her pale pink polo shirt. “I’m not sure. Say, the Tigers won last night, did you hear? Ten innings.”
Josh looked at me. I looked at him. Holly was not a sports fan.
“What were they asking, Holly?” Josh pulled one of his sodas out of his pants and pushed it in her direction. “What did they want to know?”
“Oh, nothing.”
I popped the top of the can and turned the opening in her direction. Holly always talked when she had a drink. Didn’t matter if it was coffee, tea, water, soda, or an adult beverage. To Holly, a fluid in her hand meant she was supposed to be talking. “Here you go,” I said. “Drink up.”
One sip was all it took. “Stan Larabee was my cousin,” she said.
I frowned. “What kind of cousin?” Couldn’t be a first cousin—the age gap was too wide.
“No, no. Second cousin, twice removed. Something like that.”
A muscle at the back of my neck loosened. “He must have had lots of distant cousins. Everybody does. Six degrees of cousins, right?”
Which I thought was fairly funny, but Holly wasn’t listening. “It’s not that, well, not directly. It’s because . . .” She took another drink. “It’s because I asked him . . .” Another gulp. “I asked him to lend me some money.”
Josh went still. “You did what?”
Holly clutched the can. “You know how Brian and I want to buy our own house. That’s why he’s out in Wyoming working at that mine. He’s making good money, really good, but there’s this house I just fell in love with and we don’t have enough for a down payment and I thought . . . I thought maybe . . .”
“Everybody knows that Stan Larabee doesn’t lend money,” Josh said. “Not to anyone.”
Didn’t lend money, I thought. Past tense. So very, very past tense.
“Yeah,” Holly said. “But since we were cousins, I thought maybe this time it’d be different.”
Josh made a rude noise. “No wonder the police were asking you questions. Bet old Stan kept that begging letter in a file.” He grinned. “Does Brian know you asked Larabee for money?”
Her eyes went wide. “No! He’d hit the roof. He’s coming home for the Fourth of July. Don’t you tell him, Josh. Don’t you dare! It’ll ruin his whole trip home.”
“It’s going to cost you,” Josh said, his grin going wider. “There’s this whole stack of data entry I’ve been putting off, and—”
“Time to get back to work,” I said. “See you two later.”
I left them to their wrangling. If past experience was any guide, Josh would try to get a little too much out of Holly, she’d retaliate by reminding him that she was a neighbor to the attractive young woman he was thinking hard about dating, and they’d call it a draw.