Chapter Thirteen

Detective Yarmouth’s interrogation of me was somewhat anticlimactic.

I’d waited for him in the main room of the library, pacing up and down, taking books off the shelves, opening them, reading one line, and then reshelving them, while Charles swished his tail, back and forth, back and forth, and watched me through narrow amber eyes. Yarmouth arrived about an hour after me. Charles made no effort to greet the visitor. He sat on a high shelf, tail moving. Yarmouth examined the room while I watched nervously. He muttered something under his breath when he caught sight of Charles, and his gaze moved on. He then went into the staff break room.

When he came out, he and Charles eyed each other for a moment, then the detective asked me to take a seat. The uniformed officer stood by the door, his feet apart, staring straight ahead, not smiling, as though he expected me to bolt for freedom any minute.

Yarmouth had obviously spoken to other party guests as well as Florence, because he knew most of what I had to tell him. He knew about the food we’d served and about the gluten-free plate prepared for Mirabelle and that Watson had taken the remains to be tested. He asked me if I’d seen anyone tampering with the food, and I said I hadn’t.

“Thank you for your time,” he said at last. He hadn’t bothered to take off his coat.

“This is all moving very quickly,” I said. “You’re not even sure she was killed by something she ate.”

“Would you like me to wait until that’s confirmed, Ms. Richardson? While potentially hundreds of people risk exposure to the same thing?”

“Uh, no.”

He headed for the door. The cop stood aside. I let out a long breath. Yarmouth turned. “Oh, one more thing,” he said. I’d seen the old TV show Columbo many times. It was one of my dad’s favorites. The move was still darn intimidating though. “Your cousin, Josephine O’Malley, are you close?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Fond of her?”

“Very. I mean, yeah, sort of.”

“Is she known to have a temper?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You were a witness to an incident last week in which she threatened to kill Mirabelle Henkel.”

I let out a burst of strained laughter. That was about the last thing I’d expected him to say. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nothing like that ever happened.”

“That’s not what I’ve been told. Oh, if you have to rush to your father’s bedside, let the people at the Nags Head police station know where you can be contacted, will you. Have a nice day, Ms. Richardson.”

I stood in the doorway and watched him drive away.

What the heck?

Josie had never threatened Mirabelle. She was annoyed; she might even have been downright angry, but she’d never threatened to kill her cousin.

I’d begun to turn to go back inside, thinking I’d better call Uncle Amos right away and let him know Yarmouth was making unfounded accusations, when my attention was caught by a rusty van bouncing down the lane.

I groaned. Louise Jane. Aside from Detective Yarmouth, this was the last person I wanted to see. I considered running inside and bolting the door, but she’d spotted me. Louise Jane never gives up.

“This isn’t a good time,” I said, once she’d parked her car and walked up the path. “The library’s closed.”

“So I heard. It’s all anyone’s talking about in town. Another murder at the Lighthouse Library.” She shook her head. “You’ve stirred things up again, Lucy.”

“Me? This has nothing to do with me. None of it ever has.”

“Your innocent protests are so endearing, Lucy honey. But it’s time you faced facts. The spirits who live here don’t like you.”

I sputtered.

Louise Jane pushed past me and went inside. She stood in the center of the floor, hands firmly planted on her bony hips. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Charles leapt off the shelf and settled into the wingback chair for an afternoon nap.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Shush,” Louise Jane said.

More deep breaths. I was about to go in search of something to read when she opened her eyes again. “All is quiet.”

“It was quiet until you arrived.”

“I mean, Lucy honey, on a spiritual level. I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you not to have a wedding shower here.”

“Please, Louise Jane, I can’t handle this now. A woman died yesterday. The police will soon determine the cause, and it will not be because one of your invisible friends put a curse on her.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t mock what you don’t understand.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Yes, Louise Jane wanted to see me heading back to Boston. She wanted me out of my Lighthouse Aerie and she wanted my job. And yes, for those reasons she didn’t like me, but I’d never thought she actively disliked me. Her efforts to frighten me were clumsy at best.

None of her so-called ghosts had ever bothered me or left any evidence of their presence. What’s more, Charles didn’t appear to sense anything either, and animals are supposedly highly sensitive to the supernatural.

Only once, around the time of Halloween, had I thought I’d seen something unexplained and unexplainable, moving outside in the marsh. At the same time, strange things had been happening here, inside the library, when the sailors on a model ship Louise Jane had lent us to be part of the seasonal display appeared to move all by themselves. I hadn’t mentioned what I’d seen to Louise Jane, and she seemed to know nothing about it.

Louise Jane’s great-grandmother was an Outer Banks legend, and being her heir and attempting to keep alive the history and legends of this stretch of the coast was a responsibility Louise Jane took seriously.

She had the respect, I reminded myself, of many people.

“What I’ve heard,” she said, “is that Mirabelle was on a diet and Josie prepared a special tray of low-fat desserts for the shower.”

“Where did you hear that?”

She waved her hand. “Everyone’s talking about it, Lucy.”

So much for hoping rumors wouldn’t spread. “Everyone shouldn’t be talking about it. The police haven’t said anything about her being killed by something she ate.” Not publicly, I added under my breath.

“Forensic vans are parked outside Josie’s Cozy Bakery. No one’s being allowed in. Josie’s been seen pacing up and down outside. Valerie Manning was having her morning coffee when the state police charged into the bakery and ordered everyone out. You don’t have to be a genius to know what they’re thinking.” Louise Jane narrowed her eyes and peered at me. “Or some sort of hotshot private detective.”

“I’ve never claimed to be a hotshot anything. I’m just a librarian.”

“It’s even on Twitter.”

“What’s on Twitter?”

“The news about Mirabelle’s death and about Josie’s being closed while the police search it.”

“Well then, if it’s on Twitter, it must be true.” I tried to sound unconcerned, but my stomach dropped to the approximate vicinity of my toes. Josie had been worried about the hit the reputation of her bakery would take if gossip started spreading. Looked as though it had. Twitter had a national reach. Plenty of people who vacationed in the Outer Banks would see it, and if, I mean when, Josie was found to have had nothing to do with Mirabelle’s death, that news wouldn’t spread nearly as far or as fast.

“You haven’t had anything to do with these vicious rumors going on Twitter, have you, Louise Jane?”

She looked genuinely hurt. “Other than my parents and my grandmothers, I care about nothing in this world more than the Outer Banks in general and this library in particular. And Josie O’Malley is very much a vital part of both of those things.”

“Sorry,” I said. And I was. Louise Jane’s loyalty has never been in doubt.

“Apology accepted. You know I only want to help.” She smiled at me in the way that always makes me fear a sudden attack is imminent. “Now, if we’re going to remove the cloud of suspicion from Josie, we have to understand what did happen here. Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way, but I can’t help but notice you’ve put on a few pounds lately.”

“What!”

“Must be that being-in-love stuff.” She winked. “You’d better be careful; a few pounds here and there can lead to a few more. Or so I’ve heard.” Louise Jane herself is as thin as a needlefish. And, at times, her teeth can be as sharp.

“I have not put on weight, and I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain to you. Please try to follow along, Lucy honey. I fear you’re in danger. As I’ve told you many times, the Lady bears no ill will toward anyone, not even you, but other spirits are at work here. Spirits who might not have been happy to have crowds of people in the building on what should have been a quiet Sunday and you coming and going at all hours of the night. Logical enough for them to have a look at your weight gain …”

“I have not …”

“And assume the fat-free treats were made for you.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Every time I start to like Louise Jane, she hits me with another crazy idea that somehow manages to make me look like the foolish one.

“Is it? Mirabelle wasn’t from around here, and she should have been going home the next day. There was absolutely no reason for any of the lighthouse residents to want to do her harm. You have to agree.”

“Well, yes, that’s true, but it seems like an indirect way to get to me.”

“I’m trying to learn all I can about the inhabitants of the spirit world, Lucy, but sometimes they can be beyond our understanding.”

“Those particular baked goods weren’t fat-free anyway. They were gluten-free. A sign was posted next to them saying so.”

Louise Jane lifted one eyebrow. “Yes, I saw that, but do you think a Civil War–era soldier or an uneducated laborer who’d been part of the crew that built the original lighthouse would know what gluten-free means?”

“No, I guess not. Hey! Why am I agreeing with you anyway? This will all turn out to have perfectly natural causes.”

“I hope so, Lucy, but in the meantime, you have to consider that the poisoned food was meant for you, and poor Mirabelle got in the way. How time flies; I have to be off. Have you heard anything more from George?”

“Who?”

“George Grimshaw. About the work to secure the building?” Louise Jane pointed to the crack in the alcove wall. “I’m positive that’s bigger than the last time I saw it.”

I couldn’t help but look. The crack did seem to have grown longer and wider. “He’s supposed to be coming Wednesday to do the inspection. I don’t know if that’s going to happen now.”

“Nice chatting to you. You’ll let me know if you want me to put some spells down in front of your door, won’t you? Although, if someone, or something, is after you in the rest of the building, that might not help much.”

Louise Jane let herself out. When the door had shut behind her, I gave my head a shake. From the comfort of the chair, Charles called me to come and pat him, and I obliged.

Mind games. Louise Jane and her silly, childish mind games.

Before calling Uncle Amos to let him know what Yarmouth had told me, I ran upstairs and dug into the back of the closet in search of the bathroom scale. I hadn’t been on it for a long time. I kicked off my shoes, took off my sweater, ensured Charles wasn’t standing behind me pressing the scale with his paw, and with great trepidation stepped onto it.

Two pounds down from the last time I’d looked.

More mind games.

Which, I had to admit, worked every time.