The mohawk had worked when she was in Los Angeles. There it was all about attitude and style. Lizzie Borden had been the future of rock and roll and she strutted out there, a cute, ballsy, fresh-faced little girl doing Florida blues rock with an L.A. edge to it. Both the crowds and the suits told her she was the new Janis Joplin.
Critics loved her first album. But then the record company was sold, and the new owner didn’t love her. He pulled the album, kept the rights to Lizzie’s music and her name, and told her she could buy it all back for a hundred thousand dollars.
So here she was, standing in front of a mirror in a dirty hotel room back in her hometown, trying to save up a hundred grand on minimum wage, pushing the cleaning cart around every day with a notebook tucked under the towels. She’d pull it out when new songs came to her, get the song down, and get the room cleaned fast. She couldn’t afford to get fired.
The wig was the hotel’s idea: No tattoos, no weird hair or piercings. The Hilton was a five-star hotel. So, she stopped shaving the sides of her head a couple of days ago.
To hell with it all, she thought. I’m a maid now, not a singer. Get over it.
As she finished the room, a line popped into her head. She started singing quietly, and then added a twist, a little downbeat blues riff with an angry vibe laid on top. Then she was jumping on the bed in front of the mirror, holding an invisible microphone, singing the song low to stay out of trouble, but singing it. Someday, she’d sing this one loud.
She hopped down and looked back in the mirror. The defiant red streak of hair burned straight and true through the brown bristles on the sides of her head.
“The hell with someday,” she told the mirror. “I’m shaving the sides tonight. After all, I’m the queen of rock and roll.”
She pulled the wig back on, smoothed the bed, and stepped out the door before pushing her cart to room 417.
The door was not quite closed. She knocked and called out the same robotic “Housekeeping.” The unlatched door made her nervous, but she pushed in anyway.
The smell hit her as soon as she opened the door. The room looked unused, except for a closed suitcase and an open overnight bag on the dresser.
“Housekeeping?” she called out again, hoping someone would answer and she could leave the room for the afternoon girl.
No one answered. She propped the door open with the cart and looked down at the open bag. It was filled with neat stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills in paper wrappers, more money than she had ever seen. She stared at it for a moment, and then pulled her eyes away.
She tiptoed to the foot of the bed and peeked into the bathroom where the smell seemed to be coming from. There was nothing there but tiny bottles of unopened shampoo and unused towels. Maybe she could back out carefully and not have to clean at all. Get this room for free.
On her way out, she tripped over something at the edge of the bed and jumped. There was a man in a suit lying on the floor in the narrow space beside the bed and the bathroom wall.
“Sir?” she whispered. She looked at his head, which was lying in a pool of black-red blood and featured a neat hole in the middle of his forehead.
“Sir?” Her voice cracked. Lizzie leaned over and checked his neck for a pulse, and jumped back when she found his skin was already cold. She stood rooted in place for a minute with her hand over her mouth and her brain churning.
Lizzie had never in her life taken a thing that didn’t belong to her.
She took the money
praise for michael guillebeau and MAD Librarian
“Guillebeau (Josh Whatever) blends humor and mystery perfectly in this comic thriller set in the small city of Maddington, Ala. …Guillebeau keeps things light with frequent laugh-out-loud lines.”
“This book is truly every librarian’s dream come true. After fighting budget battles over and over again, librarian Serenity has lost her library funding. What’s a librarian gonna do?… A funny, moving story of our most precious institutions under threat.”
“The hilarious patchwork of characters who run the Maddington Public Library (aka the MAD) take the perennial matter of budget cuts into their own hands. Irreverent and boisterous, this book is for anyone who believes in the power of books and libraries.”
“Billed as Breaking Bad—The Library Edition and one would have to agree. Just think, as a book lover, how far would you go to save the library and the books that you love?”
“A great adventure in the fed-up world of librarians! Funny, exciting, and realistic.”
“Mad Librarian is for anyone who loves books, libraries, and cracking good writing. Guillebeau sheds light on our struggling library system with clever, quirky prose and a perfect balance of humor and darkness.”
“MAD Librarian lives up to the pun of its title—MAD characters, MAD Library location, and MAD humor. Guillebeau has created a character in MAD librarian Serenity, who not only pays tribute to all librarians, but is exactly the one you hope works at your community library. A fun easy read.”
“Great story! Loved the characters and the flow of the story. Librarians that know what they want and how to get it.”
“The librarians of MAD fight the good fight, say the things we are all thinking, then do the things that none of us actually do when we are wide awake.”
“…You are taken down a crazy, MAD road of murder, corruption and… The passion of books and what they can do for an individual, a town, a community.”
“…Pair angst and social dismay with a wide-ranging story that offers dashes of something for everyone and you have an original production recommended for readers unafraid of chick-lit stories laced with social observation as a pillar of the community decides enough is enough.”
“…nothing less than a powerful love story between a woman, Serenity Hammer, and the people of the city she serves as their librarian. I will never look at libraries or librarians the same way again…”
“…the collection of oddball minor characters and surprise twists deepen an already strong story. An engrossing debut. Mystery Debut of the Month.”