CHAPTER SEVEN
I awoke the next morning feeling both apprehension and excitement. This was it. For the first time, I’d be running my own library. I saw myself as a combination administrator and matchmaker, bringing people and books together for what might be long, happy relationships. What could be better than that?
Rodney jumped from the bed and stretched on the chair by the window before vigorously cleaning his face. All night he’d slept cuddled against my shoulder, as if to give me comfort and courage.
As I prepared for the day, I was still dizzy from dreaming. Where had it all come from? I’d always been a decent sleeper. When Anton had come in to work with a double espresso and complained of insomnia, I listened patiently, but without understanding. For me, going to bed was easy. Bath, a few chapters of something from my pile of vintage mystery novels, then a stretch of unbroken sleep.
Since I’d been in Wilfred, all that had changed. Not only was I dreaming, it was as if every dream I’d been meant to have over the years were lined up and coming at me triple-time. I’d awake from one dream, Rodney purring next to my ear, then fall asleep into another.
The dream that stayed with me through all of this was the one I’d also had the night before, of standing in my grandmother’s moonlit garden in my nightgown, holding a glass of pungent liquid, feeling dread and resignation.
At last, dressed and fortified with a hot breakfast of poached eggs and toast, I went downstairs. Rodney followed me and took a right to the kitchen and his cat door to the garden.
A second after the cat door flapped, the kitchen door opened to Roz. She shed her coat and checked that the coffeepot was burbling. “Dylan’s coming right behind me on his bicycle.”
“The intern, right?” I said.
A moment later, a freckled blond dressed in too-short stovepipe trousers with a matching vest and wingtip shoes joined us. His cheeks were ruddy from pedaling up the hill. He set his bicycle helmet on the counter.
“Dylan Tohler, ma’am.” He thrust out a hand.
“You can call me Josie.” I pointed to the carnation in his buttonhole. “I like your style.”
“My grandpa left me these clothes. I figure they suit the setting.”
“Ready for your debut?” Roz asked me.
“I guess so,” I said.
“You’d better be, because there’s a line waiting to get in. Everyone wants to see the new librarian and finder of dead bodies.”
I’d known Roz less than three days, but something about her already felt like family. “Then let’s do it.” I stepped ahead of Roz to cross the atrium and propped open the foyer’s inner door. At the front, I threw open the bolt and heaved the brass handle.
Half a dozen people waited outside in the drizzly fall morning, and another few were coming up the path from town. My breath quickened. I couldn’t wait to get started. Despite the gesture to enter, the patrons waited in the foyer to be introduced.
“You must be the new librarian.” A woman with short gray hair and binoculars dangling around her neck beamed at me. Her T-shirt read BIRDERS DO IT IN THE BUSH. “Ruth Littlewood. Lifelong Wilfredian and library devotee.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I bet you have great suggestions for our natural history collection.”
The next patron introduced himself and, as if to stretch conversation, asked about books on gardening.
“Growing Vegetables in Cascadia is one you might want to check out.” A jolt went through me. Where had that title come from? As far as I knew, I’d never even heard of the book. I must have seen it, and its title had stuck in my mind. Then, surprising me further, I said, “Upstairs, back bedroom. You’ll find it on the shelf nearest the closet.”
“I hear your welcome in Wilfred wasn’t as, um, friendly as it might have been,” he added.
“Hmm?” I was still stunned at my sudden knowledge of local gardening.
“He means the dead girl in the bushes,” the man behind him said. He stuck out a hand. “Craig Burdock.” He craned his head. “I haven’t been to the library in ages. Nice digs.” He drew a strand of his long hair behind his ears, and his eyes grazed my figure. “If I’d have known how attractive it was in here, I’d have come sooner.”
Although I hated to make generalizations about readers, Craig Burdock didn’t look like he spent a lot of time with books. He had shaggy hair and tight jeans and, curiously, wore moccasins without socks, despite the crisp morning. Two books titles leapt to mind: a biography of Al Capone and Studies in Juvenile Delinquency.
“Can I help you?” I asked in my most professional voice.
“Yeah, you sure could.”
“With a book?” I added.
“I’m looking for love poetry.”
I should have laughed, but there was something riveting about his velvety brown eyes. This guy had deadly charisma. “You might like Lord Byron. Poetry’s back there.” I waved toward the house’s old drawing room.
“Craig?” A woman in a bathrobe stood frozen inside the door. She had a purple towel in one hand and a basket holding a bar of soap and a loofah sponge in the other. Trailing her on a dirty satin ribbon was a blond terrier mutt.
Craig Burdock’s expression wavered before settling on a smile. “Hey, Lalena. Maybe I’ll see you later?”
“Maybe you’ll see me in hell.” She turned to me, purposefully ignoring Burdock, who slouched off to poetry. “Welcome to Wilfred. I’m Lalena Dolby.”
“Josie Way,” I said, extending a hand.
“I’m here for a bath. I hope that’s okay. Some of us from the trailer park come up sometimes. Did Bert tell you about me?”
“You mean Sheriff Dolby?”
“My brother. Well, my half brother. My mom named us after Donovan songs. Bert was named after ‘Bert’s Blues.’ ‘Lalena’ for me. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Later she was on to Neil Diamond. I might have been named ‘Sweet Caroline.’ Who knows?”
“Or ‘Cracklin’ Rosie,’” I said, dredging the title up from Dad’s collection of LPs. “Bert’s quite a bit older than you, isn’t he?”
“Fifteen years. Like a father, in some ways. It didn’t surprise me at all when he went to work for the county sheriff. Dad was a sheriff, too, and so was Grandpa. It’s the family business.” She continued toward the stairs, then stopped and turned. “You don’t have a departed loved one, do you?”
“What?” I stepped back.
“You know, a loved one I can connect you to.”
“No. I mean, none I need to chat with,” I said, thinking of the body in the bushes.
“I do tarot, palm readings, and communication with the dead. Come see me, if you want, but not before ten in the morning.”
“Okay.” I felt a little discombobulated.
For almost an hour I stood just inside the door greeting patrons. After shaking my hand, a few Wilfredians said things like, “Sorry about your experience. We’re a good town, and I hope you’ll enjoy it here,” giving me meaningful looks. Roz kept passing through the hall and waving her hands as if to say, “Busy!”
Only one person asked specifically about the body, a ten-year-old who probably plagued her teacher with off-topic questions. She paused chewing her gum long enough to say, “Someone plugged a stranger out back, huh?” I directed her toward the children’s section and Harriet the Spy.
In fact, I was a well of book recommendations, and I loved it. Patrons probably more interested in checking out the new librarian approached me and asked something offhand, like where War and Peace was shelved. I’d find myself jotting down the name of another novel for them, and, in one case, recommending a do-it-yourself manual on installing brake shoes.
Where did it come from? It was like I was plugged in to a cosmic book catalogue, and each of my suggestions was an arrow striking a bull’s-eye. It was exhilarating. This was what I was meant to do. This was why I loved books so much.
At last, the stream of looky-loos abated, and, almost giddy, I made my way back to my office.
“I haven’t checked out so many books in—well, ever. Murder sure boosts circulation,” Roz said.
Lyndon came through the back door with an armload of dahlias. Roz swiveled to watch him, and he seemed to feel the need to say something. “Flowers. For the atrium.”
“Did you arrange the branches there now? They’re beautiful,” I said.
He grunted and filled a vase from the kitchen faucet.
“Lyndon is very talented with plants and flowers,” Roz said with pride.
Without looking at her, Lyndon passed through to the library.
Roz sighed. “I’ll get the circulation desk. I only work half a day, so you might want to eat lunch now.”
“Good idea.” I turned toward my desk, then caught Roz just as she left. “Oh, in this morning’s craziness, I forgot to tell you that I left a copy of Pride and Prejudice on your desk last night. Could you pull it from circulation? There’s some kind of printing error with the last half, and it’s completely unintelligible.”
“Figures,” Roz said. I prepared myself for her inevitable downer statement. “I suppose we’ll have to go over every single book that comes in.”
I spent the next half hour with a sandwich in my office. I looked over the circulation records and library events and couldn’t help making notes for improvement. I felt a high that whooshed through my veins and flowered in ideas and energy. I wouldn’t be around to see any of the projects through, but the library needed a computerized system to check out books and track inventory. As far as I could tell, no one had been issued a library card in years, and books were lent with a simple notation of name and date in a ledger. Also, cookbooks should definitely be moved out of the bathroom.
Such a shame I’d be leaving so soon. There was so much I could do here.
“Yoo-hoo.” Roz stuck her head into the office. “Is this the book you were talking about?” She lifted the volume of Pride and Prejudice.
“That’s it.”
“Looks fine to me.” She set the book on the desk and ruffled its pages. “See?”
I pulled it closer and flipped to the passage I’d read last night. I turned the page. The text read without a hitch.