“Toby Carter? But he’s a twenty-year-old Eagle Scout,” Emma protested. “I mean, he’s so clean, he practically squeaks when he enters a room.”
“Let me check the other barcodes from the items found in Kayla’s car,” Lindsey said. “Maybe there’s a mistake.”
“Do it,” Emma said. “I mean, I thought this would ID our dead guy, not point us in the direction of some earnest college student who spends his free time bringing meals to the elderly.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Robbie poked his head in.
“Get out,” Emma said. It was her police chief voice. It didn’t allow for argument.
Robbie held up two steaming mugs of coffee. “I thought you might like some coffee to go with the cookies you’re hoarding in here.”
Emma paused. Her coffee addiction was legendary in the small community. It took all of one innocent blink from Robbie for her to make up her mind. She waved him in. He handed them each a steaming mug. Lindsey noted that he had them prepped just the way they liked them.
“So, do we know who the dead man is?” Robbie asked.
“How did you know—?” Lindsey began, but Emma shook her head.
“He doesn’t,” she said. “He’s fishing for information.”
Robbie blew out a breath. “Blast! Thwarted again.”
Emma sipped her coffee and said, “Don’t take it too hard. There is nothing to confirm yet.”
She kissed his cheek and then pushed him back out the door, closing it behind him.
Lindsey turned back to her computer. She opened the email with the barcodes that Emma had sent her, and then she copied and pasted them one by one into the circulation module. The patron name attached to each record was Toby Carter.
Lindsey sent the sheet to the printer. A whir sounded as the machine kicked in, and Emma glanced at her.
“That was quick.”
“Every CD was checked out to the same patron. Toby Carter.”
Emma frowned. She didn’t like this any more than Lindsey did. It just didn’t fit. How could Toby have any connection to a man who had stolen Kayla Manning’s car and who was now dead from a bullet in his head? These were not people whose paths should ever have crossed.
“Maybe Toby checked out the CDs for Kayla,” Lindsey offered.
“Then Kayla lied about having any CDs in her car when I interviewed her,” Emma said. “Besides, how would they even know each other? She’s a banker in New Haven, and he’s a bag boy at the grocery store.”
They stared at each other.
Emma put down her coffee and pulled the top off the tin of cookies. She took a snickerdoodle and bit it in half. Then she washed it down with a swallow of coffee. Lindsey followed her lead and reached into the tin, too. No one made snickerdoodles as good as Nancy’s. Light and fluffy with just the right amount of cinnamon, the cookie melted in her mouth, making her want more and more. She drank her coffee instead.
“Despite the improbability, could Kayla and Toby know each other? Does he compete in the Ironman or kayak like she does?” Lindsey asked.
Emma made a face. “She’s a little old to be pals with him, don’t you think?”
Lindsey thought of the Toby Carter she knew. An honor student, he was involved in a hiking club, and was always in the library, studying with his study group. It did seem unlikely that the tall, skinny teen she’d watched grow up, a former member of the chess club who loved epic books that included dragons, would know the hardworking, hard-playing, hard-drinking, forty-something Kayla, but Briar Creek was a small town.
But even if he did know Kayla, maybe they were neighbors, or perhaps she was friends with his parents. Lindsey still couldn’t wrap her head around Toby having anything to do with a hit-and-run or a shooting, but the CDs put him right in the middle of it. It was just bizarre.
“What are you going to do now?” Lindsey asked.
Emma stuffed another cookie in her mouth and held up a finger in a wait a second gesture. Lindsey took another cookie while Emma chewed. After a big swallow, Emma sighed.
“I’m going to go have a chat with Toby and find out why the CDs he checked out were in Kayla Manning’s car. There could be a valid reason we haven’t thought of,” she said. “Then, depending upon his answer, I’m going to go back to Kayla’s and find out why she had items Toby had checked out in her car. I am really hoping their stories mesh.”
“I don’t envy you having to talk to either of them,” Lindsey said. “Awkward.”
“To put it mildly,” Emma agreed.
She finished her coffee and headed for the door. Robbie stood on the other side of it, and she plopped her empty mug into his hand. Then she kissed his cheek and said, “Thanks. I’ll be home late. Don’t wait up.”
Robbie turned and followed her. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“I have questions that need answers,” Emma said.
“Let me help you,” Robbie offered. “I am brilliant at getting answers.”
“No,” Emma said.
“But—” Robbie dropped the coffee mug onto the circulation desk as he followed her to the doors.
Lindsey rose from her desk and found Sully, Violet, and Nancy all watching Emma and Robbie as if they were the entertainment portion of the evening. Robbie crouched down to turn the knob that would unlock the doors. As soon as the doors slid open, Emma strode out with Robbie right on her heels.
“Ten dollars says she leaves the drama queen in the parking lot,” Sully said.
“That’s a sucker bet.” Nancy snorted. “We all know who wears the badge in that relationship.”
Lindsey wasn’t so sure. Emma talked a good game, but Lindsey suspected she was very much in love with Robbie, and while she clearly enjoyed sparring with him, Lindsey didn’t think she’d intentionally try to hurt him.
“I’ll take that bet,” Lindsey said.
“Oh,” Violet cooed. “What do you know?”
“Nothing, but I think Emma enjoys Robbie, and I doubt she’d ditch him,” Lindsey said.
Emma’s squad car passed by, and they all turned to the window to stare. Robbie was in the back seat.
“Ha!” Lindsey said to Sully. “You owe me ten bucks.”
“Agreed, but given that he’s sitting in the back, I’m not convinced she didn’t arrest him for being a public nuisance,” he said.
Lindsey laughed. She couldn’t argue the point.
“Is your work here done?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s it?” Nancy protested. “We come here with cookies and we get no information?”
“There’s really nothing to tell,” Lindsey said. She debated mentioning her engagement, but she wasn’t sure how Sully felt about going public with it just yet. For now, she wanted to keep their new status between them. “Emma had some item records for me to look up, and they may point her in a direction, but it certainly doesn’t answer all of the questions.”
“Like who hit Theresa?” Violet asked. “Or who stole Kayla’s car?”
“If someone actually stole it,” Nancy said.
“Was it the dead man they found in the car? And who is he, anyway?” Sully asked.
“Is he the same person who tried to suffocate her?” Nancy asked.
“And if so, who shot him?” Violet asked.
“More importantly, who was shooting at her this evening?” Sully said. “Did they shoot the man in Kayla’s car, too, and if so, why?”
Lindsey shivered. She glanced at the others, knowing she looked as perplexed and worried as they did. “One thing is certain: whoever is after Theresa, they are certainly determined to finish the job.”
Lindsey awoke early the next morning. Sully had a crack-of-dawn pickup in his water taxi. It was so early, the sun wasn’t even up. Lindsey stayed burrowed under her covers as he moved about their room, not whistling. When he went out to the kitchen, the whistle crept out of him while he made coffee. Lindsey smiled into her pillow. She was going to marry that whistling fool.
When he returned with her coffee, he planted a kiss on her head, whispered that he loved her, and turned to leave. Lindsey grabbed his hand and tugged him back so that he had to catch himself from falling on top of her by planting his other hand on the edge of the bed.
He grimaced and looked at her from beneath his lashes. “I really did try not to whistle.”
Lindsey smiled. She gestured to the floor, where her shoes sat in a heap. “And I really meant to put my shoes away.”
His grin was like the sun bursting up from the horizon. “So, we’re good?”
“Never better.”
Sully scooped her up close and squeezed her tight. “And now I’m going to be late.”
Neither one of them cared.
The memory of her morning made Lindsey smile. When she walked Heathcliff to Nancy’s, since she liked to pet-sit him, Nancy remarked that she looked especially cheerful. Lindsey shrugged it off. She knew her new status with Sully was the reason for the bubble of joy floating around inside her, but still, she wanted to wait to share the news.
This was, of course, assuming that Sully still felt the same way. It had occurred to her after he’d left that morning that he’d asked her to marry him after a close encounter with a bullet, and maybe it had just been his relief at still being alive. She tried not to overthink it, but she didn’t want to get too excited if he’d been impulsive in his proposing.
It was a beautiful spring day, so she decided to ride her bike to work, the same Schwinn cruiser she’d been riding since she’d moved to town. She stuffed her book bag in the back basket and kicked off from her house. The ride from Sully’s wasn’t much farther than the one from her old apartment, but it was a bit more scenic, as it wound through the older neighborhoods. Even so, she was just going to make it to work on time.
Lindsey was pedaling past the bakery, feeling regret that she didn’t have enough time to get a good cup of coffee and a muffin, when she saw Toby Carter come out a side door of the small store, carrying a sack of groceries. While she watched, he ducked behind the hedge that circled the small parking lot in back. Lindsey hit her brakes.
Emma had said she was going to talk to Toby last night. He was wearing the green apron he always wore while working his shift at Briar Creek’s only grocery store, so it was clear that whatever conversation they’d had, it hadn’t culminated in Toby getting arrested. Hmm.
She knew she should pedal on to work. She knew it, and yet she turned the handlebars of her bike toward the grocery store, parking the bike in the rack in front. She then started up the wooden steps that led to the side entrance of the small shop, inhaling the delicious smell of muffins and pastries as she went. If Toby was delivering someone’s groceries, she could wait for him here and then engage him in conversation when he came back.
She took the steps slowly, knowing that once she was at the top, she’d be high enough to see over the hedge and into the parking lot. She could hear muffled voices as she approached, and she paused, inching closer until she could hear what was being said.
“I don’t care what’s at stake,” a voice snapped. “You can’t tell anyone. Ever.”
“But—” a male voice protested. She was certain it was Toby.
“No, no buts.” It was a woman’s voice. It sounded familiar, but Lindsey couldn’t place it.
“So, you’d rather go to jail than tell the truth, that we’re in lo—”
“Don’t say it!” the woman shrieked.
Lindsey paused with her hand on the rail. The voices were just beyond the hedge. She was so close. If she just leaned a little bit to her right—say, in an effort to use the banister to tie her shoe—she might be able to get a glimpse of whom Toby was speaking to.
She propped her foot up and yanked her shoelace loose, then she made a big show of tying it while she leaned down and glanced over the hedge into the small parking lot beyond. Sure enough, there was Toby talking to Kayla Manning. She ducked down, hoping that if she stayed still, she could listen to what was being said.
Her opportunity was lost when the door to the bakery opened and Dennis Greaves and Sam Holloway came out.
“Good morning, Lindsey!” Dennis called out as if she were fifty feet away instead of five.
“Morning, Lindsey,” Sam echoed.
“Hi, Dennis, Sam.” Lindsey finished tying her shoe and rose to her full height. She glanced to her right and noticed that the conversation on the other side of the hedge had stopped.
Kayla’s head snapped up in her direction, and her eyes narrowed into slits. Then she snatched a bag of groceries out of Toby’s hands and dropped them unceremoniously into the trunk of what appeared to be a rental car.
“Thanks for the help, Toby,” Kayla said. She reached up and ruffled his hair. “Such a darling boy. See you around.”
Toby frowned at her as if he had no idea what she was saying and was offended that she was treating him as if he were twelve instead of twenty. Lindsey knew the whole thing was for her benefit. Kayla must have suspected that she had overheard their conversation.
Kayla squeezed past Toby, climbed into her car, and sped off as if the long arm of the law was chasing her. Lindsey wondered whether perhaps it was.
Sam and Dennis squeezed past her on the steps with a wave good-bye, but Lindsey lingered, waiting for Toby. He stood forlornly in the parking lot, watching Kayla drive off, looking like he wanted to race after her, his expression a mix of frustration and infatuation.
Lindsey didn’t envy him that. When she had speculated about Toby and Kayla knowing each other, she hadn’t considered the possibility that they were romantically involved. From what she had overheard, it was clear they were in a relationship, and, oh boy, what a mess that was going to be when Emma found out. And she would find out, because if Toby and Kayla hadn’t told her already, Lindsey would.
Toby stared after Kayla’s car before turning back to the store. His back was rigid, and his posture was tense. In all the years Lindsey had seen him at the library during his study group, she’d never seen him upset. One of the things she liked most about him was his easy smile and can-do attitude. She wondered whether that was one of the things Kayla liked about him, too.
When Kayla’s car disappeared, Toby stomped around the hedge, heading back into the grocery store. When he moved around her, Lindsey reached out and touched his arm.
“Hey, Toby, are you all right?” she asked.
The young man stared at her with a blank expression, then he shook his head as if trying to get his head in the moment.
“Ms. Norris, um, hi,” he said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t see you there.”
“I figured,” she said. “You look as if you have something on your mind. Is there anything I can help you with?”
He swallowed, as if he was thinking about talking to her. Then he looked down and studied his shoes. “Nah, I’m good—really, totally good.”
Lindsey put on her library-director face. It was the look she gave her staff when she was waiting for them to tell her about something that was going to require paperwork. She had learned pretty early on when she became the director that the less she talked when engaging her staff, the more they spoke to fill in the silence. She noticed they shared more if she didn’t interrupt with her own opinion.
“If you’re sure,” she said.
Toby paused. He glanced at her face, and Lindsey made it as blank as possible.
“I just, you know, there’s this girl—well, no, she’s a woman,” he stammered.
Lindsey waited.
“You know, because I’m a man,” he said.
Since Lindsey was in her midthirties, twenty did not seem like a man to her, but she said nothing. She just nodded.
“Anyway, she’s got some stuff happening and she doesn’t want me involved, but I’m already involved, because I love her.”
His voice cracked when he said he loved her, and it was all Lindsey could do not to say, Aw. Instead, she nodded.
“The thing is—well, actually, this concerns you,” he said.
“It does?” Lindsey blinked. How did he know she was fishing for information? She felt a moment of panic.
“Yeah, because I lost my library card,” he said.
“Oh?” she said.
“And it looks like someone checked out some materials on my card,” he said. “So, I should probably report it.”
“Right, you don’t want to be liable for what someone else checked out.”
“All right, I’ll do that,” he said.
Lindsey looked at him. He was a conversational Ping-Pong ball. She needed to get him back on track.
“I’m not really following how your missing library card has anything to do with the woman you love not wanting to get you involved in something,” Lindsey said. She hoped he would explain. He didn’t.
“It’s complicated,” he said with a sigh.
“Toby, is there any chance the woman that you love has something to do with your card being missing?” she asked. “Did she borrow it or something?”
“No,” he said. “She’s not a reader.”
“Ah, well, do you know when or where you lost your card?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “The last time I used it was over a week ago, to check out some research books for my Japanese class, and I hadn’t thought about it until last night, when—”
He stopped talking and looked embarrassed. Clearly, he didn’t want to admit that the chief of police had been to see him. Toby was a bright young man. Lindsey knew he would figure out in a few seconds who had told Emma that the materials found in Kayla’s car had been checked out on his card. She decided to help him out.
“When Chief Plewicki stopped by your house,” she said.
“You know.” He looked excruciatingly uncomfortable.
Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the railing. “I’m the one who told her that the materials were checked out on your card. I hope you know I wasn’t betraying your patron confidentiality. She had a subpoena.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see where you had no choice.” His face paled, and he glanced at her from beneath his lashes. “The thing is, I didn’t check out any of those things, I didn’t have anything to do with the hit-and-run, and I definitely did not shoot the dead guy. I don’t even own a gun.”
“Did you lend your card to anyone?”
“No, no one,” he said. “I always keep it in the front pocket of my backpack, but when the chief stopped by last night and I went to look for it again, because I haven’t seen it in over a week, it wasn’t there.”
Lindsey decided it was time to push. She studied his face when she asked, “Did you tell Chief Plewicki about your relationship with Kayla?”
“I’m not . . . we’re not . . .” he protested.
Lindsey shook her head, letting him know he needn’t bother. She knew.
He blew out a breath, ran a hand over his face, and dropped his chin to his chest.
“No, I didn’t tell the chief. No one knows about us,” he said. “I don’t care who knows, but Kayla freaked out. She said her reputation was bad enough without adding cradle robber to it. I really do love her. I don’t want to get her in trouble.”
“I can appreciate that, but you need to tell the chief about your relationship,” Lindsey said. “If you don’t, the chief is going to consider you a suspect.”
“But if I do, Chief Plewicki is going to consider Kayla a suspect,” he said. “When we found out my library card was used by the dead guy, she freaked. She thinks someone is trying to make it look like she hired a hit man to kill Ms. Huston or that she had me hire a hit man for her. Why would we do that? We’re in love.”
“There have been some cases in the media where an older woman has a relationship with a younger man and gets him to kill for her,” Lindsey said. “It’s a sad cliché, but it does happen.”
“But that’s crazy. Even though I love her, I would never do that!” Toby’s voice went high, and Lindsey glanced around to make certain no one could hear them. “Besides, she would never ask me to do something like that. Kayla is a warm and wonderful woman.”
“Even so, I’m sure you can see where people might read it wrong,” Lindsey said. “If you are Kayla’s alibi, then telling the truth is the best thing you can do for her.”
“She’ll never go for it.”
“Try to get her to agree,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know.”
“Thanks,” Toby said. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the store. “I’d better get back.”
“Sure.”
Toby held the door for her when Lindsey went into the bakery and ordered a poppy-seed lemon muffin with her extra-large high-octane coffee. Given the start to her day, she had a feeling she was going to need it.
She arrived at the library in time to help with setup. The book drop needed to be emptied, the computers turned on, and the phones taken off their nightly call forwarding. Lindsey stowed her purse and her food in her office and joined her morning staff as they hustled around the building.
She set up the reference desk, switching on the computer and the public terminals nearby. She went to help with circulation when she noticed that Ms. Cole wasn’t there. Ms. Cole was always there. She was like a commander in battle: the front desk was her front line, and she never abandoned her post. Ever.
“Stupid, ridiculous, idiotic waste of money, bucket of bolts . . . grrr.”
The muttering sounded familiar. Lindsey followed the grumbling until she found Ms. Cole holding a roll of receipt paper while glaring at the self-checkout machine.
“Problem, Ms. Cole?” she asked.
“I’ll say.” Ms. Cole gestured at the machine with the roll of paper. “It won’t print. I have loaded the paper three times, in every conceivable direction, and all I get is this.” She lifted up a strip of the paper that looked as if it had been neatly folded into accordion pleats.
“Paper jam,” Lindsey said. “Not helpful.”
“No, it isn’t,” Ms. Cole said. “We’re supposed to open in a matter of minutes, and I do not have time for this.”
Lindsey held out her hand. “I’ll take a look, and if I can’t get it working, I’ll call it in.”
Ms. Cole stared at her for a moment. “Thank you.”
She dropped the roll of paper into Lindsey’s hand and walked away. Given how much Ms. Cole hated technology and how resistant she had been to the dreaded self-checkout machine, Lindsey had to take this as a win, even if it meant she was the one wrestling with the stupid paper-receipt printer—and before coffee, too.
She decided to go with a full-on troubleshooting approach and shut the machine down for a few moments before starting it up and trying to get the printer portion of it to work. The machine was resistant. Much like Ms. Cole, she ended up with pleated paper and no receipt, and the printer made a lovely beeping noise like a truck backing up just to let her know there was an error. Lindsey could feel her temples compressing as a headache loomed. She refused to look over at Ms. Cole. She did not want to see any smirking.
She spooled in the paper and hit the feed button. It bunched up. She opened the latch and fed the spool of paper the other way. She hit the feed button again. Again it jammed.
Lindsey switched the machine off. First, she needed coffee. Second, she would call someone from the company to try to troubleshoot the machine over the phone. She made a quick OUT OF ORDER sign and slapped it on the machine. Then she headed back to her office.
She called out to Ms. Cole as she passed, “I’m still working on it.”
“Uh-huh,” Ms. Cole replied. Lindsey was certain there was a smirk in her tone.
When Lindsey entered her office, she found Robbie sitting there. She jumped and put her hand on her chest.
“Robbie, we’re not even open yet,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came in the back with Beth,” he said. “We have to talk.”
“About what?”
“The case,” he said. “We have an unidentified dead body—”
“We don’t,” she corrected him. She heard her phone ping in her purse and pulled it out of the side pocket. “The police do, and he’s no longer unidentified. They have his name. This is their investigation.”
She glanced down at the screen in case it was something related to work. The text message was from Susie McAllister at the genealogical library. Lindsey read it and then read it again. She had no idea what to make of this information, but she knew it was huge.
“Fine, you’re right. It’s police business, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help gather information,” he said. “We have a hit-and-run, an unsuccessful suffocation, not to mention the Norrgard twins barely got Theresa out of the line of fire last night. So, what did you say the dead man’s name was?”
“I didn’t. And don’t ask, because I’m not sharing,” Lindsey said.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because this is dangerous,” she said. “There are people driving through the middle of town, shooting guns. It’s incredible that only one person has been killed—tragic, but still remarkable.”
“See, it’s our duty to help the town in any way we can. I mean, who better to find out who is trying to kill Theresa Huston than us?”
“Your girlfriend, the chief of police,” Lindsey said.
“She’s hampered by the law,” he said. “Whilst we are free to question whoever we want whenever we want.”
Lindsey shook her head at him, knowing full well she was being a hypocrite, given her conversation with Toby. And with the text sitting in the palm of her hand writhing in her grasp like a living thing. How could she just ignore it? She couldn’t. She closed her office door and took her seat behind her desk. Robbie, as if sensing he had her full attention, put aside the newspaper he was holding and leaned forward.
“What if I told you I had looked into the disappearance of Larry Milstein’s first wife, Sarah?” she asked. “And that I think I may have found her.”