“I’ve been working on some ideas,” I said, turning to face her, “and I’ll have a budget completed by your deadline, which was the middle of October.”
“When I said the middle of October,” she said to the air above my head, “that was the latest I want to see it. I fully expect to get a completed budget ahead of that time.”
“Oh.” I stared at her. How on earth I was supposed to have known that, I wasn’t sure. “I didn’t realize.”
“No? Everyone says how on the ball you are, Minnie. I assumed that would include early delivery dates of things I request.”
If I’d been a mind reader, sure.
I looked up at the bottom of her chin. “I’ll have it to you next week,” I said. “If I’d known you wanted it earlier, I would have sent it to you earlier.”
“It’s not a matter of wanting.” She smoothed the front of her jacket. “It’s a matter of your performance. As soon as you finish, please e-mail it to me.” With that, she and her high heels clicked down the tiled hallway.
I watched her open the door to the stairwell and, as she clicked up the stairs to her second-floor office, shook my head and headed to the staff break room. Normally, at this time I was the only one in the building; the only time I’d ever seen Stephen in his office before nine o’clock was the Monday after a time change when he’d been out of town and neglected to turn back the clocks in his house.
But at least Jennifer was headed upstairs. If the last few weeks were any indication, she wouldn’t be back down until after the library opened to the public at ten.
After a quick stop in the break room to start a pot of coffee, I went to my office, dropped off my backpack, grabbed my favorite coffee mug, the one emblazoned with the logo of the American Bookmobile and Outreach Services, and returned to fill up with the fuel by which the Chilson District Library operated: caffeine.
A few sips of the steaming hot nectar of the gods later, I began my morning the way I’d been doing ever since Jennifer had moved into Stephen’s office, by walking through the library and seeing what was what. Our new director had a habit of zeroing in on the slightest negative, and if I could head off those comments, maybe she’d eventually realize that the library wasn’t a total disaster or a complete mess in need of a huge overall.
“Not a mess at all,” I murmured, looking around and marveling, once again, at the gorgeous setting. We’d been in this building, which everyone still called the new library, for almost exactly four years. And even then it hadn’t been new. The residents of Chilson, when faced with the question of whether or not to fund the expensive renovations of a vacant and century-old school for the purpose of giving their jammed-packed library more space, had overwhelmingly voted to fund the project and the result was a place of pride for everyone.
The designers had opted to expand on the Craftsman style of the original building, giving us oak- paneled walls, oak ends on the shelving units, metallic tiles around the drinking fountains, and a working gas fireplace in the reading room. We had a computer lab, a Young Adult lounge area, and meeting rooms with projectors and a catering kitchen.
It was flat-out gorgeous, but Jennifer continued to find faults, so I cruised the entire place, adjusting picture frames with the precision of an art gallery manager, making note of which shelves needed books to be soldiered to the front, and making sure Gareth, the maintenance guy, hadn’t missed a single speck of dirt when vacuuming.
Satisfied that I’d done everything I could to avert Jennifer’s wrath, I returned to my office and fired up the computer. Though I hadn’t exactly lied to Jennifer about the bookmobile budget—I did have some ideas—they remained just that and I needed to move the ideas into the practical realm if I was going to make my new boss happy.
I stifled a thought that popped into my head (Nothing I do is going to make her happy), tossed down some more caffeine, and started working.
A couple of hours later, the sound of voices and footsteps penetrated my consciousness. I leaned back, stretching, and got up, mug in hand.
“Oh, no,” I said, entering the break room, dismay clear in my voice.
“Hah!” Kelsey Lyons, one of our part-time clerks, grinned at me and pushed the coffeemaker’s start button. “I was here first. Timing is everything and you don’t have it this morning.”
Though our library ran on coffee, the strength of the stuff varied widely. Donna, our seventy-one-year-old marathoner and snowshoer, preferred it weak enough that you could see through it. Holly, one of my best library friends and about my age, liked it in the middle. Josh, the IT guy, also a good friend and within a year or two of Holly and myself, preferred it the way I did, strong, but not so strong that it could pass for espresso.
Kelsey, on the other hand, would probably eat the grounds raw, but it was an unwritten rule that whoever emptied the pot could make the next one whatever strength they wished.
“Rats,” I muttered.
“You snooze, you lose,” she said, her face all sunshine and roses. Clearly, this was not going to be her first cup of the morning.
“Oh, man.” Josh, mug in hand, came to a halt in the doorway. “Please tell me you made this pot, Minnie.”
“Sorry. I was two minutes late.”
He sighed heavily. “Knew I should have waited to install that program.”
“Cut it with water,” Kelsey said.
“That’s what you always say,” Josh said, shoving his free hand into a pocket of his cargo pants. “And it always tastes like crap.”
Up until a few months ago, the stocky Josh had been a diet soda guy, shoving dollar bills into the soda machine like there was no tomorrow. Since he’d purchased his first house, however, that habit was a thing of the past.
He frowned at the coffeepot, then turned and frowned at me. “Hey, did I hear right about what happened on the bookmobile yesterday?”
Kelsey, who was in the act of deftly pulling out the coffeepot and letting the brew drip straight into her mug, asked, “Something happened? Is the bookmobile okay?”
It warmed my heart every time I realized that people were concerned about the bookmobile’s health. The library staff cared about the bookmobile. The library board cared. The downtown merchants cared. Complete strangers cared. Even people who didn’t have a library card cared, a concept that baffled me, but I’d stopped trying to understand that one.
“The bookmobile is fine,” I said. “It’s just . . .” My eyes were suddenly filled with moisture. I looked down, took a quick breath, and smoothed out my face. “Remember I told you about Leese Lacombe, that attorney who moved back north last summer? Specializing in elder law?”
Though I got two blank looks, I kept on going. “Anyway, yesterday was so warm we left the bookmobile door open. Eddie got out and, well, he found Leese’s father in the bed of the pickup truck she was driving.”
“What do you mean, Eddie found him?” Kelsey pulled away her mug and plopped the pot back down. “If her dad was with her, he couldn’t have been lost.”
“You’re not getting it,” Josh said. “He was dead.”
“He was . . .” Kelsey blinked.
I nodded. “The ambulance came, the police came, and eventually the medical examiner came.”
Kelsey gave her head a little shake, rearranging her short blond hair. “I don’t understand. What was he doing there? Had he died and she was taking him to the hospital or . . . something?”
“I don’t know.” I flashed on an image of Leese in the back of the police car, determinedly looking forward.
“The guys downtown are saying she killed him.” Josh shrugged. “Not saying she did, but that’s the talk.”
“Why is it that men talk,” Kelsey asked me, “but women gossip?”