“Everyone is talking about that blog.” I tossed off what I hoped was an eloquent shrug.
The small smile turned large. “And you don’t want to be the last one to know?”
“Well, no one does.”
She cackled with delight. “Where’s the calendar? It’s a red-letter day.” Next to the cash register was a canister of pens, and she reached for a red one. “I can’t wait to tell Marcia.” She turned to the calendar on the wall behind the counter and wrote. “There!” She spun back around and clunked the pen back into the canister.
The calendar I’d mounted on the wall was filled with notations for party dates, author signings, and staff scheduling. Today’s square, however, had the added touch of a small stick drawing. The triangle skirt and hair ending at the shoulders denoted it as female. The outstretched fingers and O-shaped mouth showed the figure’s surprise. Above her head was a lightbulb, and inside the bulb was the word “people.”
I stared at the drawing. People.
“It’s supposed to be funny,” Lois said uncertainly. “You know, silly? Beth finally admits that knowing things about people is important. Hah hah?”
People. I wanted to smack my palm against my forehead. “Thanks, Lois. You’ve been a big help.”
“I have? I mean, good.”
A customer came in and asked for middle-grade books for boys not very interested in reading. Lois took her in hand. I went to my desk and fired up the WisconSINs blog. I glanced at the bottom of today’s entry. Barely ten o’clock in the morning and more than a dozen people had already left comments. Oh, dear.
“Fresh Help for Finding Murderer,” it started. “This blogger is giving you the good news that a new recruit will breathe life into the campaign to ferret out Agnes Mephisto’s killer.
“No longer will the citizens of Rynwood need to wait for the slow wheels of justice to grind out the answer we so desperately crave. Why should we be afraid to walk the streets at night? Why should we quake under our blankets, shivering with the numbing thought that We Could Be Next?
“My friends, it’s time to fight back, and this blogger has enlisted a new vigilante to fight for the cause. Come back tomorrow, dear Readers, for the next installment in the efforts to Take Back the Rynwood Night.”
I closed my eyes. “Oh, Marina,” I whispered. “What have you done?”
Chapter 13
I crossed my arms. “Vigilante?”
Marina chuckled. “Isn’t that a great word? The exact definition is ‘a self-appointed—’ ”
“I know what ‘vigilante’ means.”
“Bookish Beth.” She rolled a pencil toward me. It bounced across her kitchen table and came to rest against my yellow pad of paper. “Can’t you just see it?” she asked. “You and me and all the other people who want to see justice done, banding together for the maintenance of order. Maybe we should get uniforms. A dark green would be just the ticket.”
People, whispered a voice in my brain. What people do is important; what people think is important; what people feel is important. Our job was figuring out which particular people were significant to Agnes, and then we could work on motivations. And motivations are the origins of actions. Find the motivation, find the killer.
“Or a mustache.” Marina’s cheeks were flushing a pale shade of pink. “Don’t you just love those handlebar types?” She twisted the ends of her imaginary mustache.
“No mustaches until we figure out who’s threatening you.”
“Aren’t you the party pooper.”
“Richard is dropping off the kids at eight. I don’t have all night.”
“Sad, but true. Ah, for the days of unencumbered youth.” She heaved a bosom-raising sigh.
“Take off your rose-colored glasses. We need to get to work.” I thumped my pad of paper. “We need a plan.”
“Oh, goodie.” She clapped her hands. “I love plans.”
“When was the last time you went along with a plan? 1983?”
She pulled her mustache tips out straight. “I’ll have you know I’m completely capable of following a plan.”
“You can, but will you?”
“Wasting time, my sweet, we’re wasting time.”
“Fine.” I picked up the pencil. “Tonight is brainstorming night. I ran into Gus at the grocery store, and he says the sheriff’s department says the investigation is proceeding, but that could mean anything.”
“Means they’re getting nowhere,” Marina said darkly.
“We don’t know that.”
She looked at the ceiling. “Is she truly this innocent?” she asked the white paint. “I know she doesn’t get out much, and she has a history of serious shyness, so she’s the worst person on the planet to hunt down a killer—”
“Hey!”
“But she’s the best thing I’ve got.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She stopped fiddling with the mustache. “You don’t have to do this.” Her voice was quiet. “Help me, I mean. This kind of stuff isn’t your style.”
A sense of relief filled me. I was off the hook! I could go home, back to my journal and dirty laundry. No threats, no murders, no pushing myself into a shape that didn’t suit me. “Well . . .”
“No, really. This is going to mean tracking down clues and figuring things out about suspects and eliminating possibilities. You’d have to get out and do stuff you don’t like to do. I pushed you to be PTA secretary, and that’s as much pushing as I should do. You’re quiet and retiring, and you don’t like all that . . . that doing.”
The relief was replaced by irritation. “I’m not exactly a hermit. You make it sound as if I live in an ivory tower. Did you forget I was a journalism major? I know all sorts of techniques that would be useful for this.”
She gave me one of those you’re-being-argumentative-for-no-good-reason looks. “Only on paper. You don’t know anything about real investigating.”
“And you do?”
“I’m the one being threatened. Dragging you into this is pure selfishness on my part. This kind of stuff isn’t for you, Beth. You’d have to make people talk to you. Make people want to talk to you.”
That people thing again.
“It’s so not you.” She leaned forward and placed her warm hands on my chill ones. “You’d have to change, and I don’t want that. I love you the way you are, dear heart.”
There was no good choice. If I helped Marina, I’d be stressed out and uncomfortable and cranky and impatient with my children. If I didn’t help, I’d feel guilty the rest of my life that I didn’t help my best friend in her hour of need.
The scrunchie in Marina’s hair dropped to the floor with a small plop. “I should never have asked you to help.” She patted my hands. “Forget I ever brought it up. Let’s talk about something else. What are you doing for Jenna’s and Oliver’s Halloween costumes?”
She chattered on about costumes she’d once made for her older children, and I listened with half an ear as my conscience fought with my stick-in-the-mud-ness.
I didn’t want to do things that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to change. But there were dark circles under Marina’s eyes, something I’d never seen before. And there were the hat boxes in Agnes’s closet.
No, there wasn’t a good choice here, but there was only one I could make.
I waited for a pause in Marina’s description of a gladiator outfit she’d made for her daughter. “Like it or not,” I said, “I’m going to help you.”
“You will?” Marina looked at me. “For really real?”
“Yup.”
“Hooray!” She leaped up out of her chair and ran around the table. “You’re the best friend ever, ever, ever.” The hug she gave me squeezed my breath away. “Ever!”