“Thanks,” she said.
Ruby glanced down the street and gave an involuntary shiver.
Justin followed her gaze. “What’s going on down there?” he asked.
Ruby closed her eyes for a second and took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s . . . it’s . . . Remember I introduced you to Agatha Shepherd?”
Justin nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”
“She’s, uh, dead,” Ruby said.
“Hey, I’m so sorry.” He caught one of her hands and gave it a squeeze. Then he looked from me to Maggie. “What happened?”
Maggie shrugged. “Stroke, maybe. She was old.”
Ruby swallowed hard. “I was cutting through the alley, and she was lying . . .” She didn’t finish.
Justin folded her into a hug. “That’s horrible. What can I do?”
Ruby broke out of the embrace and pushed stray bits of hair out of her face.
“Nothing really,” she said. “I’m . . . all right.”
The coffee was going to get cold if I stood there any longer. “Guys, I’d better get going,” I said.
Ruby turned to me and touched my arm. “Thank you, Kathleen,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I smiled at Justin. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you, too,” he said.
I caught Maggie’s eye. “I’ll see you at class tonight.”
She nodded.
I started down the sidewalk while the others headed in the opposite direction, toward the artists’ co-op. Officer Craig was standing at the mouth of the alley, which was already taped off and partly blocked with a couple of town sawhorses. There were a few people hanging around watching, but not that many. I eased my way over to the young police officer and handed him the coffee cup and the little bag of sugar and cream. “I thought you might be getting cold,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup.
“There’s cream and sugar in the bag.” I held out the other cup. “Would you give this to Detective Gordon, please?”
There was a brief flash of surprise on his face, but it quickly disappeared. “Yes, ma’am, I will.”
“Stay warm,” I said. It was what everyone said in Mayville Heights in the winter.
I skirted out around the police van, still angled near the curb, and took the opportunity to have a look down the alley. I couldn’t see much, just Marcus and a couple of other people standing over Agatha Shepherd’s body, which was still lying on the snowy ground. A shiver crept up the back of my neck. Maggie and Ruby seemed convinced that the old woman had had a second stroke. I hadn’t wanted to upset Ruby by disagreeing.
I’d seen blood on Agatha’s coat and on the pavement. And her arm was twisted at an unnatural angle.
I didn’t know what had happened to her, but I was pretty sure it had been violent.
5
Abigail came up the steps just as I was unlocking the wrought-iron security gate at the main entrance of the library. The gate was mostly decorative now that the building had a proper security system. I punched in the code on the keypad and waited for the light to turn green before I opened the doors.
Behind me Abigail turned on the lights. “It looks good, doesn’t it?” she said, pushing the scarf off her head. Her hair, a beautiful mix of red and silver, was pulled back in its usual braid. She smiled at me. “I know, I know. I keep saying that, but I can’t get over how amazing this place looks now.” She gestured to the mosaic tile floor. “Every once in a while I flash back to that bilious turquoise indoor-outdoor carpet that was on the floors.”
I rolled my eyes at the memory. “That was pretty bad.”
Abigail started for the stairs and the second-floor staff room. I headed up behind her. “You want coffee?” she asked. “I’ll start it.”
“Please,” I said.
I unlocked my office, dumped my bag on my desk chair, hung up my coat and then bent to take off my boots. Something was caught in the cuff of my pants—probably another chunk of frozen snow.
I started to turn the fabric inside out to dump whatever it was onto the floor when I realized it wasn’t a dirty piece of snow caught in my pants; it was a broken piece of glass. How had I gotten that stuck in my cuff?
I went to pull it loose and then stopped myself. I’d bent down in the alley next to Agatha’s body when I’d felt for a pulse that hadn’t been there. There had been tire tracks and other bits of detritus in the sand and snow near the body. Had I picked up the piece of glass there? If someone had run Agatha down, the jagged piece of broken glass caught in my pants cuff could be evidence.
I reached for my bag. I had Marcus Gordon’s card with his cell number in my wallet. He’d given it to me the previous summer when my house had been broken into. Now I used the number.
I wasn’t surprised to get his voice mail. I left a brief message explaining that I might have found something connected to Agatha’s death and then hung up. I pushed back the sleeves of my sweater and turned around.
Marcus was standing in my doorway. Startled, I made a strangled sound halfway between choking and gargling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, leaning back against the desk. “I just left you a message.”
He pulled out his cell and flipped it open. “So you did. Was there something you forgot to tell me?”
“No.” I pointed to my pant leg. “There’s a piece of glass caught in my cuff. I think I might have picked it up in the alley when I bent down to check on Agatha. It wasn’t there when I got to the café this morning.”
He tipped his head and looked down at me. I was five foot six; he was taller, over six feet, so tall that I always felt little in his presence. “How can you be sure it came from the alley?”
“Because the laces on my boot came undone when I was at the café and I dumped snow out of that cuff. I would’ve felt a piece of glass.”
“Did you walk over here?”
“Yes,” I said, shifting so the edge of the desk wasn’t digging into my backside. “On the sidewalk all the way.”
He gestured at my leg. “May I?”
“Go ahead.”
I put my foot up on the seat of one of the black fauxleather chairs that flanked my desk. “The inside edge of the cuff,” I said.
He pulled a thin purple glove from his pocket and put it on. Then he reached into the fold of fabric and carefully pulled out the piece of glass, holding it by the edges with his thumb and forefinger. He had huge hands. He stood up and looked around. “Do you have an envelope to put this in?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said. I dropped my foot and squeezed past him to get to my desk drawer. He smelled citrusy—a bit like one of those drinks with a tiny plastic sword skewering a wedge of lime. I shook my head. Why the heck was I smelling the man? Most of the time I didn’t even like him.
I held up a business-sized envelope. “Will this do?”
“That’s perfect.”
I held open the top and he dropped the piece of glass inside; then I handed the whole thing over to him.
He sealed the top and put the envelope into the pocket of his coat. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
He didn’t move.
“Was there something else you wanted to ask me?” I said.
“I just have a couple of questions.”
I gestured to the chairs. “Have a seat.”
He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I’m okay,” he said.
I didn’t want to sit down if he wasn’t and have him looming over me like a cop in an old black-and-white movie, so I stayed standing, as well. “What did you want to know?”
“You were meeting Ms. Adams and Ms. Blackthorne at the restaurant. What time did you get there?”
“I was meeting Maggie,” I said. “She told me Ruby was coming, as well, because she had the lightbulbs Maggie needed for the Winterfest display. And as for when I arrived, I’d say about seven thirty. Maggie was already there.”