“Joe, I need you to not worry so much about the things I can’t talk to you about.”
“The man out there is FBI. I’ve worked with him.”
“Former FBI.”
“Didn’t know that. So what’s he doing here now?”
“Research.”
He stared at her with his flat, unreadable cop expression.
“Joe, I—”
Her phone buzzed twice. She put her hand on his arm.
“Please, Joe. I’ve got to go.”
forty-four
all the truth that’s fit to print
SOMEONE SCREAMED. Joe pushed Serenity aside and ran past her. She saw heads turned toward the other side of the library and followed Joe at a run.
Doom was standing in the doorway coming out of the computer server room, face red. Kendall stood in front of her like an expressionless statue. Joe stopped in front of them and Serenity plowed into him.
“He—he was just standing there,” said Doom. “I opened the door and this patron was just standing there. He startled me.”
Kendall turned at an angle so he could face Doom, Serenity and Joe at the same time. At that angle, his glasses shined like two impenetrable mirrors. He paused a long second before he said, “Checking the layout here. This was the only locked door. Just happened to be standing in front of it when you burst out in such a hurry.”
He pivoted his head forty-five degrees to focus on Joe and Serenity, and his bug-eyes reappeared. “Wondering why a library would feel the need for a locked door.”
Serenity said, “Lots of doors here have locks. Plenty of places that aren’t open to the public.”
“But today you’re so busy that every room is open, most of them full. The only one locked has a sign that says children’s reading room over it. Seems curious. Makes me wonder what the children are reading in there.”
She watched him to see if it was a joke. If it was, jokes didn’t come with smiles on this guy. Her mouth opened to explain, but her brain didn’t supply any words, and she stood there with her mouth open.
Joe rescued her. “Don’t I know you? Agent Kendall, FBI? We worked together a while back on that abduction that turned out not to be an abduction?”
Kendall took a step back and turned so the mirrors took in all three of them again. “Detective Hammer. Good to see you again.” He said it flat. Hard to tell if it was real or snark. A long pause, followed by, “And there was a credible ransom note.”
Joe slouched slightly and grinned, the pose of a good ole boy chatting about nothing bigger than a football game. “Credible note that we warned you was a joke. Looked like it was written by the dumb-ass the supposedly-abducted woman had been seeing on the side. Second-grade grammar, couple of his favorite catch phrases, more bragging about having taken the man’s wife than threatening. And no mention of money.”
“Sometimes,” said Kendall, “small-town law enforcement doesn’t recognize the gravity of a situation.”
The wattage on Joe’s smile turned up. “And sometimes the FBI likes to make a mountain out of a molehill. So what brings you down from the big-city office, Agent Kendall?”
“Former Agent. I retired and went private. And, of course, even you know I can’t discuss what my client is paying me to look into.”
“So it might just be another wild goose chase?”
They paused, an emotionless look facing a friendly look, and neither of them meaning what their poses promised.
“Or not,” said Kendall.
Joe laughed a perfunctory laugh. “Enjoy our library, Former Agent Kendall. We always welcome a new patron.” He turned to Serenity. “I’m gone. Unless you need me for some other little distraction.” He spun and marched out the door and Serenity watched him go.
Behind her she heard Doom say to Kendall. “You’re no patron. You’re the miserable worm who wants to crawl through our books to find something to embarrass us and let Bentley close the library.”
Kendal studied her. “Just looking at the books, like any citizen has a right to do. What makes you so sure I’ll find something bad?”
She jabbed at him with her finger. “I’m not. But I’m sure you’re going to try. That’s what Philistines like you and Bentley do. We are building a city of books here. You and Bentley are not going to stop us.” She pushed her finger into his chest. “And if you try, we will stop you.” She jabbed with each word. “By. Any. Means. Necessary.”
“Ms. Doom,” said Serenity. “Have you got Mr. Kendall’s report?”
“It’s on the printer.”
“Why don’t you go get it, and I’ll show Mr. Kendall some place where he can work?”
Doom snorted and stomped away.
Serenity said, “She doesn’t mean anything. She’s just protective of her library.”
“Protective of something. Are all of you that protective here?”
“Doom is an excitable girl. But, yes, we’re all pretty protective. We love books, and we love our library.”
“Actually, Ms. Hammer, I love libraries, too. I’m just doing a job.”
“Yeah. It’s who you’re working for that makes Doom treat your visit like a poisonous snake rattling.”
Doom returned with a stack of paper. Serenity took them and put Kendall in a carrel next to Doom’s desk in the public area. An old man, a little heavy, with gray hair in a ponytail under a red Alabama Championship cap to match his red Alabama windbreaker was sitting at the next carrel and didn’t look up.
“I’ll be in my office if you have any questions. Don’t hesitate to ask.”
“I won’t.”
Serenity found Doom was waiting in her office. “I can’t believe you caved to him like that.”
“I didn’t cave.”
“I would have demanded a subpoena or something.”
“Yeah, and he’d have made one call to Bentley and they’d be back, twice as suspicious.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be suspicious of in that report.”
Serenity raised an eyebrow.
“I gave him the library’s accounts. The library’s accounts, without the Special Projects fund. Which, after all, is a private fund of donations from private citizens who support the library. Really, it belongs to them, not us.”
forty-five
need to check out a placenta? call your librarian
SERENITY’S PULSE POUNDED like the tell-tale heart in Poe’s story of the same name. She couldn’t sit, she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t… be. Finally, she thought of trying something long forgotten.
Folding herself in her chair, she heard her mother’s voice.
“Everyone,” the calm, strong voice floated over the years, “we begin our meditation by making a deliberate and definite change in posture. As best you can, establish now a posture that embodies a sense of dignity and wakefulness.”
As soon as Serenity put her feet flat on the floor, hands resting in her lap, back slightly away from the back of the chair, head up, she was taken back to the last time she had given herself to one of her mother’s morning meditations. A field, somewhere in the Florida sun, with lettuce fields behind her mother. A circle of people: several tie-dye shirts, and a couple of men in hip business suits. The defensive line from a local college, sent to her by their coach.
“Eyes closed, if you’re comfortable with that.”
It was automatic for Serenity. When her mother said eyes closed—even in her imagination—her eyes popped open. She remembered seeing her mom at the center of people who had travelled miles to be guided by her. Except for her daughter, who was unguidable, and like any good American daughter, wanted to be anything but her mother.
“Focus on your breathing. Be present and pay attention to the rise and fall of your diaphragm. Feel the stretching as your chest expands, the relaxation on the exhale.”