Well.
I was walking idly down the hall when I noticed an extremely tall and baseball-capped figure leaning against the wall outside the doorway to the reading room. “Mitchell, what on earth are you doing?” I asked.
Mitchell Koyne looked down at me and put his finger to his lips. “I’m helping,” he whispered.
I eyed the leaning Mitchell, who had recently begun sporting a scraggly beard. Whether the facial hair was intentional, was a result of sheer forgetfulness, or was due to the lack of a razor, we hadn’t yet decided. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure that the wall is going to keep on standing, even without your help.”
The building itself had kept its upright position for almost a hundred years in its various incarnations as K-12 school, elementary school, vacant building, and, starting just a few years ago, the Chilson District Library. I would have laid down money, and lots of it, that Mitchell’s efforts weren’t going to make any difference.
“Well, duh.” He peered over his shoulder into the reading room. It was a large space filled with current newspapers and magazines, upholstered furniture, a fireplace, and a long window seat. “Ah, there’s no one in there. Dang.”
“Are you looking for someone?”
Mitchell nodded, the bill of his tattered baseball hat moving a fraction of a beat behind. “Yeah, I’m trying to help the cops catch whoever killed that woman the other night.”
Right. “Do the police know that you’re helping them?”
“Nah. Not yet, I mean. What I’m going to do is watch.” He gestured at his eyes with the first two fingers of his hand. “Watch and learn, just like you did last month with who killed Stan Larabee.”
My friend Stan. My mouth crumpled a little, but I straightened it out fast. “What makes you think the killer spends time in the reading room?”
He shrugged. “It’s a good place to read the paper. Lots of people come here, you know? It just makes sense that whoever killed that lady will, too.”
Maybe in Mitchell’s world it made sense, but I wasn’t sure it would to anyone else. The amount of time he spent in the reading room was directly related to the amount in fines he’d managed to accumulate for overdue books. Since Mitchell had no apparent intention of paying off the near-four-figure number, Stephen had cut him off from borrowing privileges. Any other patron would have found the money. Not Mitchell; he just spent more time in the library, reading in-house the books and magazines he would have borrowed otherwise to Stephen’s displeasure—which I had been conveniently ignoring.
“Say,” Mitchell said. “How about you and me team up together to find this killer? With your brains and my local know-how, I bet we’d figure it out in no time.”
The thought of conducting an investigation with Mitchell curdled everything in my stomach, from the morning’s cold cereal to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d had for lunch to the coffee I was currently sipping. “That’s nice of you to offer, Mitchell, but I’m pretty busy.”
“You sure? Because I have these ideas all sketched out and—”
I patted him on the arm. “Thanks, anyway.”
He took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, if you’re sure.”
“Absolutely. But thanks again.”
I headed back to my office and tried not to think about the conversation. Because though I was absolutely sure that I’d done my best to persuade Mitchell to leave off investigating, I was equally sure that he wouldn’t pay attention to a word that I’d said.
“Minnie.”
I stopped dead at the sound of Stephen’s voice, then turned around to face him.
“It would appear,” he said, “that you haven’t made any progress regarding the situation I presented to you.”
I sipped my coffee and tried to think of something to say. “I’ve… been busy this week.”
“It’s been more than two weeks since I tasked you with this issue. At the least I expected an outline of possibilities. A progress report would have been even better. Visible results better yet. What I’ve received from you, however, is nothing.”
His face was getting a little red. “Nothing,” he said, “and it’s getting worse. Every afternoon, Koyne lurks there”—Stephen nodded down the length of the hall— “distracting the staff and annoying other patrons. As assistant director of this library, you need to learn to get to the heart of the matter. Do something about this, Minnie. And do it fast.” He spun on his heel and marched up the stairs.
I sighed and took a sip of my coffee. Cold.
“Wow,” Holly said, opening the door to the supply closet and stepping out, her arms laden with reams of paper. “Was Stephen saying what I think he was saying?”
I looked at her. “Did you jump in there when you saw him coming?”
“Anybody with the sense of a stick would have.” She grinned. “Plus, we need more paper in the copy machine.” She looked in the direction of Stephen’s departure. “Was he really saying to kick Mitchell out of the library?”
“More like lure him away.”
She snorted. “With what? This place is like his second home.”
I had no idea and said so.
“Hmm.” Holly twisted her mouth into a sideways shape and hummed a few bars of “The Wheels on the Bus.” “Got it,” she said, brightening. “Watch this. Come on.”
We headed down the hall. She plopped the paper at the front desk and kept steaming ahead toward the reading room.
“Hey, Mitchell,” she said. “Do you know what my husband told me?”
Mitchell twisted his baseball hat around. “Isn’t he out west somewhere?”
She nodded. “He’s in Wyoming, working at that big mine. He just got a promotion. He’s making good money, really good, and he says there are jobs out there for pretty much everyone.”
“Huh,” Mitchell said. “He got a promotion? That’s cool.”
Holly’s lips firmed, but she smoothed them out into a smile. “So, what I was wondering was, have you ever thought of going out there yourself? All those blue skies and open spaces, a big guy like you would get hired right away. I’m sure of it.”
It was a good sell, so good that I almost wanted to go out there myself, but Mitchell was shaking his head.
“Leave Michigan?” he asked. “Leave God’s country? Leave all of you? Not a chance.” He reached out with both of his long arms and enveloped Holly and me in a big hug. My face was mushed up against the top of Holly’s shoulder, and her chin was digging into the side of my head.
“It wouldn’t be the same without you,” I said, and escaped down the hall with as much grace as I could muster. Holly came along with me, whispering in my ear, “I’ll see if I can get Josh to help. Sometimes he has really good ideas.”
And sometimes his ideas were horrible, but right now I was willing to listen to anything.
• • •
“What I really need,” I said to Eddie that evening, “is a magic wand. Wave it, say some really long words, and we’ll find out who really killed Carissa. Wave it again and the boarders at Aunt Frances would get straightened around. One more wave and Mitchell would find something productive to do with his life. What do you think?”
Eddie didn’t say anything.
“Yeah.” I patted the top of his head. He squinched his eyes at every pat, but he didn’t move. “I kind of figured that’s what you’d say.”
We were sitting on the roof of the houseboat, watching the sunset. At least I was watching the sunset; Eddie was still looking for the sparrow that had lured him onto the roof in the first place. Fifteen minutes ago, we’d been sitting on the chaise longues, me reading, him gently purring. Then the bird had zipped past.
Eddie exploded into action. He tore after the low-flying bird, jumped up onto the railing in hot pursuit, then launched himself onto the roof.
I’d put my book down and watched the activity with bemusement. When the bird flew into the wild blue yonder, Eddie had looked down at me.