I left my grandmother and Edmund to their meeting. I had a little better understanding of Imogene and how important proving she was a descendent of Thoreau was to her. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was important enough to kill for, though. It might have been given that she’d needed to retrieve her book, but the book was still missing.
Since I had Charles covering for me at the bookshop, I was reluctant to go back to Charming Books. Instead, I decided to go to Springside Community College and visit a friend. The campus was a little too far away to walk to, and the snow was packed down enough that I thought I could ride my bike.
I retrieved my aqua bike with the bright pink basket from the garage. As soon as I strapped on my helmet, which my grandmother had decorated with hand-painted violets, Emerson appeared in front of the front tire. “No, Emerson, you are not going with me to school.”
He cocked his head.
“Emerson, college is no place for you.”
He cocked his head the other way.
“Okay, get in,” I groaned.
The little tuxedo cat jumped from the icy gravel driveway into the bicycle’s pink basket. He snuggled down into the towel I kept in the basket for him and began to purr.
I climbed on the bike and pushed off. “One of these days, I’m going to win one of our arguments. Mark my words.”
His purring only got louder.
The fastest way to reach campus was through the woods. I was a little apprehensive riding there after being chased away from the springs the morning of my wedding.
With everything that happened since then, I had put the encounter in the back of my mind. Pedaling over the frozen ground brought it back to the forefront of my mind. I passed the springs. It was yet another day that I would have to fetch water for the tree, but that would have to wait until I returned from campus. The water couldn’t hold its mystical powers for that long and explaining why I had a watering can of spring water in my bicycle basket while on campus could lead to an awkward conversation.
I made it through the woods without incident, rode passed the village bike shop that was closed for the season, and pedaled onto campus. My first indication that the campus was deserted for winter break was that none of the sidewalks had been shoveled. The parking lot had not been plowed either. It seemed to me that the college was hoping the snow would melt before the students returned in January. There were a few cars in the lot, and I hoped for the sake of the drivers that they wouldn’t need to move them anytime soon.
Bringing the bike was a much better idea than taking the car. At least I could push the bike through the snow until I reached the library, which is where I was headed.
Emerson sat up in his basket as I hopped off and painstakingly walked my wheels through the snow to the library’s front door. I leaned the bike against one of the pillars, and the cat jumped to the steps that, despite the overhang of the building, were dusted with an inch or two of snow. Emerson pranced up the steps and waited at the door for me. Shaking my head, I followed him.
The automatic door didn’t open, and the sign on the door said the library was closed. I should have expected this. It was only a few days before Christmas, and clearly no one was on campus. Why would the library be open?
I was about to leave when a face appeared in the door’s window. I screamed.
Emerson hissed and ran down the steps.
I was about to follow him when the doors opened, and the college’s head librarian and my friend, Renee Reid, whom I hadn’t seen since the wedding, stood in the doorway. “Sheesh! It’s just me, Violet. There’s no reason to scream bloody murder.”
“I’m a little bit on edge.” I gave her a wobbly smile.
She arched her brow at me. “A little bit? Is that what you’re calling it? Get your scaredy cat and come in.”
Emerson ran up the steps and then strolled into the library with his head and thin black tail held high as if he hadn’t been spooked at all.
Renee laughed.
Most of the lights were off inside.
She must have noticed me looking around because she said, “The library is closed. I can’t turn all the lights on. Then, someone would know I was here and ask me to help them with something. It’s my winter break too. I just happened to be looking out the window at the snow when you rode up, so I knew it was you at the door. Had it been anyone else, I would have hidden.”
“How do you know I’m not going to ask you for something?”
“Oh, I’m certain you’re going to ask me for something, but you’re my friend. Besides, you ask much more interesting questions than the rest of the faculty. Let’s go to my office.”
Renee’s office was tucked in the back corner of the library near the stairwell that led to the basement, where the boiler room and the college archives were. Books sat on orderly carts in her office, waiting to be reviewed and shelved. Everything was organized and in its place. Even her houseplants on the windowsill sat in a straight line. Seeing all the organization soothed my soul. It was something that I longed for at Charming Books. A couple things held me back in achieving such a streamlined existence. The first of these was the shop’s essence, which moved the books to any place it deemed fit, and the second was my grandmother. Grandma Daisy’s idea of tidiness was a bit more higgledy-piggledy. Even now, when Grandma Daisy was only in the shop a couple days a week because of her many mayoral duties, she still managed to make a mess. Over time, I had learned to roll with it more or less, but being in such a tidy space made me long for what could be. I sighed.
Renee sat in her executive chair behind the desk. “What’s with the big sigh?”
“Your office is so pristine.”
Renee grinned. “I’ve had some say it was stark. That’s why I added the plants. I want to give the impression that I have a soft side, even if it’s not true.”
“You do have a soft side. You just don’t let most people see it.”
She rolled her eyes. “And I would like to keep it that way too.”
I might have imagined it, but for just a second, Renee almost looked sad. It wasn’t an expression that I had ever seen on my friend’s face. Renee could be irreverent, sarcastic, annoyed, and certainly hilarious, but I had never seen her truly upset.
She shook her head, and the fleeting expression disappeared, making me question if it had ever been there at all. “I’m guessing you’re here about the body?”
Emerson jumped into the windowsill and batted at one of the plant leaves. I started to get up to shoo him away.
“Oh, you can leave him be. The plants are fake. He can’t hurt them,” she chuckled.
“They are? They look so real.”
“I only buy the very best fake plants.” She grinned. “Am I right about the body?”
“Yes,” I said grudgingly.
She leaned back in the chair. “Tell me. I was at the wedding, of course, but didn’t get more than the rumors swirling around the reception.”
I gave her a brief summary of what we knew about Roma’s death. I didn’t feel bad about telling her it was ruled an accident since Officer Wheaton had already announced that to everyone at Le Crepe Jolie.
“That’s not the weird part.”
She arched her brow at me. “A woman tries to sell you a rare book, and then dies at your wedding. You say that’s not weird?”
“Okay, it’s not the weirdest part,” I said and went on to tell her about Imogene Thoreau. “Imogene thinks the book is proof that she is a direct descendent of Henry David Thoreau.”
“The best way for her to find out if she is related to Thoreau is do one of those DNA tests that you can get in the mail now. You know, the one where you can find everyone you’re related too.”
“But someone has to have some DNA from Thoreau to test too,” I said.
“Maybe his museum or one of his archives has a fingernail or even a bone of his. Maybe even a hair. It doesn’t take much.”
I wrinkled my nose.
She held up her hands. “Hey, I’m just saying. I read this article about brilliant people being dug up so people could collect their DNA in hopes that they could be cloned and come back. That way the brilliant clones could help them take over the world.”
“That can’t be true.”
Renee shrugged.
“Even if it is true—which I doubt—I’m not sure Thoreau would be on that list. He would just tell everyone to live simply and below their means. To let each person live their life the way they chose.”
“Good point. This is the first that I’ve heard about an heir to Henry David Thoreau running around the village. If someone had come into the library saying something along those lines, my staff would have told me. They are horrible gossips.” She rolled her eyes.
“I knew it was a long shot,” I said.
“You should talk to Richard. If she didn’t come to the library for help to prove her lineage, she could have gone to the English department.”
She had a good point. Richard Bunting was chair of the English Department, which made him my boss since I was an adjunct for the department. I taught two to three classes every semester, and since I was the newest hire, I usually got the classes that no one else wanted like Freshman Composition. Not only was Richard my boss, he was also Renee’s boyfriend. After having a terrible crush on Renee for a year, he finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date.
I wrinkled my brow. “If Roma or Imogene had spoken to Richard about Thoreau, I’m surprised Richard didn’t mention it to you.”
She folded her hands on the top of her clear desk. “Richard and I aren’t exactly speaking at the moment.”
“What?” I stared at her.
“We broke up,” she stated this with the same amount of emotion she would have had if she had been telling me the weather for that day.
“What? How? When did this happen?” I yelped. I had been a big encourager of Richard’s to make a move with Renee, so if their relationship had failed, I felt in some way responsible.
“It was about a month ago. It’s really not a huge deal, and I’m doing just fine. To be honest, I’m better without him. His nerves got the better of both of us at times. It’s good to be away from that kind of energy.”
I studied her face as if to reassure myself that she was telling the truth, and she really was okay with the break up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were in the middle of fall semester and about to get married. I didn’t want to add to your stress. Besides, I don’t like to wallow when stuff happens because it always does. I just got on with my life.”
Now that she mentioned it, I remembered that it had struck me as weird that Renee and Richard hadn’t sat together at the last several Red Inkers meetings. The Red Inkers were a writing critique group the met biweekly at Charming Books. And now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen them together at the wedding. I was so distracted by the day going smoothly, and then Roma’s death, that I hadn’t really even registered how strange that was. Renee and Richard had never been ones for public displays of affection, but they used to attend events together as a couple. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that they had hardly spoken of each other in the recent weeks.
Tonight was the last Red Inkers meeting before Christmas. Since we were supposed to be on our honeymoon, Rainwater and I hadn’t planned on attending. David had written some children’s books that he wanted to publish. Since the meetings were at my bookshop, I usually went. Even though I wasn’t a writer, I appreciated the craft and loved to hear about each author’s process.
“I’m so sorry, Renee,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She sighed and shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“Can I ask what happened?” I held up my hand in a stop sign. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“The thing is that I don’t know. It was Richard’s idea to break up. I thought we were in a good place. We hadn’t been dating long.” She shrugged again.
My heart sank. “I’m so sorry. I was really rooting for you two.”
“I know, and I appreciate that. I do. This could be just a bump in the road in my story or the end of a chapter entirely. Maybe I will be like Henry David and just run away to the woods. Although I’m not much for the idea of becoming a vegetarian like he was when he lived on Walden Pond. I do love a good cheeseburger.” She stopped speaking but looked like she was thinking of saying more.
“What is it?”
“What’s what?”
I gave her a look. “There’s something that you’re not telling me.”
She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I actually started to see someone else.”
I blinked at her. “Really? Who is he?”
“He had been coming into the library a lot, doing research on the history of Cascade Springs and the village hall. You know how everyone is eager to bring the history of the village back better than ever after you destroyed the village hall.”
I folded my arms. “I didn’t destroy the village hall. The aquifer underneath it did. I just happened to be there at the time.”
She gave me a look like she didn’t believe me.
“What’s his name?”
A light blush shone on her cheek. “Edmund Thorne. He’s such a smart guy, Violet. You would love him. We have the best conversations. I’ve learned a lot more about Cascade Springs and architecture from him. He’s so interesting.”
I stared at her. Edmund Thorne was Imogene’s son—a son whom I’d found to be exasperated with his eccentric mother.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“No, you can’t pretend like nothing is wrong. You wouldn’t let me do that. There’s something you’re not telling me now.”
“He’s her son,” I said.
She squinted at me. “He’s whose son?”
“Imogene’s. Imogene Thoreau’s. You’re dating her son.”