Chapter Six

The next morning arrived far earlier than I was prepared for. I would have totally overslept if not for my phone. It buzzed loudly, jolting me awake.

I CAN’T FIND YOUR FATHER, my mother shouted in her text message with all caps. She only text-shouted when talking about my dad. The hurts they’d inflicted when going through their divorce still festered all these years later. And Mama Eddy still had no qualms against pulling me into the middle of their battlefield.

I haven’t talked with him since I had lunch with him last Thursday, I texted back as soon as I managed to get my tired eyes to focus. I wondered why she needed to find him. I would have asked, but I honestly didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with whatever trouble was brewing between them. I’ll let you know if I hear from him, I texted instead.

That fool man has gotten himself into trouble. I just know it, she texted back almost immediately, which meant she must have already typed the words before I’d sent my reply.

I didn’t know what to say, so I set my phone back down on my dresser and started to get ready for the day. Thirty minutes later, I gave Jace a goodbye kiss on his forehead without waking him and then fought jaw-cracking yawns as I headed down Main Street toward Cypress’s public library.

Along the way, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom’s text. My dad was probably out fishing. But why would she care?

I stared at my phone. And why hadn’t she mentioned Rebecca’s murder in her texts? Certainly she’d heard about it by now. I was sure half the state must have heard about it. And she knew I was going to be at Hazel’s house. We’d talked about it over Sunday’s supper.

Perhaps since members of the town’s elite were also at Hazel’s house last night, she didn’t feel as embarrassed that I was at the scene of a murder as she usually would have. Perhaps she even considered my being there a good thing, since it meant I had spent time rubbing noses with women Mama Eddy respected and wished to keep as close friends.

I bet she wouldn’t feel quite as pleased after I proved that one of those socially high-powered friends of hers had murdered the town’s starlet. Jace and I had stayed up until nearly dawn speculating on what might drive one of the other book club members to murder.

“I bet all the members conspired together to kill her,” I had declared at about three in the morning. (Nothing rational ever happens at three in the morning.) I’d then slapped the dining room table with a smack so loud it made poor Dewey, who’d been napping on the rug under the table, jump. “They all arrived at your mother’s house at the same time, which is evidence enough for me. Yes, that must be it! Those women pulled off a Murder on the Orient Express murder right under my nose. Oh, they must have thought themselves so clever. But they didn’t realize I’d read and reread all the classic murder mysteries. I know them practically by heart, the arrogant fools.”

“Um, I don’t know, Tru,” Jace had said. His head had bobbed a few times, and I was sure he had been sleeping and hadn’t really heard my brilliant deduction. Sleep must have been why he wasn’t singing my praises. I’d solved the case without even having to investigate.

My own lack of sleep must have turned me into a crime-solving genius!

A few minutes later, I led Jace to the living room sofa, covered him with a blanket, and then shuffled off to bed believing I’d solved Rebecca’s murder, only to wake up the next morning with the realization that nothing I’d written in my notebook (or crowed to Jace) last night made much sense.

In the cold light of day, I understood that I would have to conduct a real investigation, the likes of which I’d never conducted before. But first, I needed to get to work.

I was a block from the library when the church bells started to chime, marking the half hour.

“No. No. No.” I started to jog.

The town could set their clocks by Mrs. Farnsworth’s punctuality. Without fail, she would walk up the steps leading to the library and unlock the front door at precisely eight thirty every morning. And she expected her support staff to be at the door waiting for her to let them in. Then, after we all shuffled inside, she’d lock the door behind us, keeping it locked until the library opened at ten.

Tardiness was not tolerated.

I needed to get to the library.

But as I sprinted toward the building with its elegant marble columns across the front that made the library look like a Greek temple plopped in the middle of our very Southern town, Mrs. Farnsworth was nowhere in sight. She must have already gone inside the library.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. A bigger obstacle than a locked front door stood between me and my job. Joyce Fellows and her camera crew were jogging down the library steps. Joyce looked about as happy as a child who’d just dropped her ice cream cone. Betty Crawley, looking nearly as miserable, chased after them.

I would bet a month’s salary that Mrs. Farnsworth had scolded them soundly before sending them on their way. No one scolded better than Mrs. Farnsworth.

At first, the sight of the reporters didn’t worry me one bit. I doubted any of them would have any interest in talking with me. I wasn’t a member of the Arete Society, nor had I known Rebecca very well.

But then I heard Betty call out to Joyce Fellows, “Who you need to talk with is the assistant librarian, Trudy Becket! She calls herself our local sleuth. She’s solved all the recent murders here in Cypress.”

Thanks bunches, Betty. She made it sound like there were murders in town all the time. And my name is Trudell, not Trudy.

But I didn’t correct the local reporter (aka the thorn in my side). Especially not after Joyce shouted to a woman dressed in jeans and carrying a clipboard, who hadn’t been at Hazel’s house last night, “Get me this Trudy person.” I certainly didn’t mind that Joyce and her film crew would be looking for the wrong person.

“She should be here,” Betty declared, and started looking around the street. “You need to ask her about how she pretended to be pregnant this past fall. What a hilarious story.”

Oh, good grief. Why did Betty have to tell them that? I ducked behind a large mailbox and hoped no one would look out their window and notice—I hated it when the townspeople talked about me. It’d taken months to get that pregnancy rumor to die down. I didn’t need any of those silly rumors to pop back up, and I certainly didn’t need to have any of those same rumors repeated on national television. If that happened, Mama Eddy would die of embarrassment. Or rather, she wouldn’t actually die. She’d just claim to have died and spend the rest of her days telling me about how she’d died of mortification thanks to me, her ungrateful daughter.

No, thank you. I’ll just stay right here and hide even if I do look ridiculous crouching here.

After a few seconds, I peeked out over the mailbox.

Good news! Joyce hadn’t seen me. She and her camera crew were making a beeline toward the Sunshine Diner across the street, where several prominent elected officials liked to take their breakfast. Betty continued to chase after them while waving what looked like a résumé in the air.

As soon as they had all disappeared into the diner, I made a mad dash for the library’s front door and tapped frantically on the glass.

“Let me in, let me in, let me in,” I whispered desperately.

Anne Lowery, the library’s young and trendy IT tech, walked into the foyer, spotted me, and smiled.

Thank goodness.

“You’re going to hate that you were late this morning,” she said as she pushed open the door. “Why were you late, anyhow? Never mind why. Follow me. You’re going to love what’s happening. It’s amazing. It’s, you know, like the future, but today?”

“What is?” I asked.

What kind of bizarro world had I walked into? Why didn’t Anne mention Rebecca’s death or the fact that reporters were waiting at the library’s entrance this morning?

Did no one in town know about Rebecca? I was about to ask Anne about it when I heard the murmur of voices coming from her office.

“It’s unconventional”—Mrs. Farnsworth’s whispery voice sounded uncharacteristically friendly—“but if you say it’s a good idea . . .”

The rest of what she said and the deep-voiced reply were muffled, as if someone had closed a door.

“What’s going on? Is someone getting the tour this morning?” I asked. Ever since the library’s transition into a technology center, town leaders would ask Mrs. Farnsworth to give tours for business entrepreneurs in the hopes that they would locate their companies in Cypress. The most recent tour had been given to a start-up called Tech Bros. The company had taken over an old barn in the middle of a cotton field. No one was sure what the company hoped to produce in a termite-infested, rotting barn. The company hadn’t hired many locals and had turned away any looky-loos who just happened to stop by. The two twentysomething co-CEOs had taken Mrs. Farnsworth’s library tour twice already, both times scribbling notes on their tablet computers.

“Tech Bros,” Anne said with a goofy smile.

“Again?” I started to ask why the CEOs might be so interested in our library. But Dewey was wiggling around in the tote bag I was carrying. “Oh! I’d better get this little guy downstairs before anyone comes this way. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“But—” Anne sounded disappointed that she wasn’t going to be able to tell me all about the excitement brewing down the hall.

“Sorry.” I hated to be rude but getting Dewey downstairs couldn’t wait. “I’ll be back in no more than fifteen minutes.” She could tell me what was going on then. When Dewey got restless in his bag, he’d sometimes complain. And I mean he’d complain in a loud screeching voice.

He wiggled around as if winding himself up to fuss.

“I really need to get him settled.” I hurried toward the back of the library, where a flight of stairs led to the basement.

I hadn’t made it much farther than a bank of public computers when a large metal monster rounded a corner. It whirled and sputtered and made an odd sucking sound as it maneuvered itself directly into my path.

The shiny beast had two red LED lights for eyes. A series of green LED lights formed an openmouthed smile that looked more menacing than friendly. It had a large electronic screen for a chest. It rolled toward me, moving with surprising speed for a heavy machine that was slightly taller than my five feet six inches.

“This must be the surprise Anne was trying to tell me about,” I muttered to myself. “I should have known. First, we go all digital. Naturally, the town manager would then bring in robots to replace the librarians. ‘Why look,’ she’ll tell the CEOs of the companies she’s trying to woo, ‘there’s nothing but computers in this library. Isn’t it wonderful?’ But it’s not wonderful,” I said to the robot bearing down on me. “You are faceless and mindless and scary.”

I tried to step out of the robot’s way.

The mechanical librarian adjusted its path to follow me.

“Shoo. Leave me alone.”

It kept coming closer.

“Go away,” I said, feeling like a fool for talking to a machine. “Back up. I need to get around you so I can go to the basement.”

“In-tru-der,” it answered in a flat metallic tone. Its chest lit up with intruder written across it in bold red letters.

“No.” I patted my own chest. “I’m a librarian.”

Dewey stuck his head out of the tote bag, meowed worriedly, and then dove back inside when the robot lifted its vacuum hose of an arm as if pointing an accusing claw in our direction.

I backed away from the menacing thing until my legs bumped into a table.

But the robot continued to roll right at me. The sucking sound grew louder.

Was this how things were going to end for me? Done in by technology?