On Thursday morning Danielle stared unimpressed at her bowl of oatmeal. Instead of sugar, she had added frozen blueberries, and instead of cream, she used milk. With the tip of her spoon, she repeatedly stabbed the clump of icy blueberries that had formed after adding milk. She jabbed them several times, pushing the clump under the milk, trying to separate the blueberries.
“I should go next door and ask Olivia for one of the cinnamon rolls she offered us last night.” Danielle looked across the table to Walt, who sat quietly reading the morning newspaper while drinking his coffee. “Why don’t we have any cinnamon rolls?”
About to take a sip, Walt paused and looked across the table at Danielle. He smiled. “Because you ate all that we bought.”
“Why didn’t we buy more?”
“Because you decided to cut down on sugar and not buy as many as we normally do. Remember?”
Danielle wrinkled her nose. “I’m too old to start listening to Cheryl.”
“Why, because she’s dead?”
Danielle shrugged. “I miss my cinnamon rolls.”
Walt took a sip of his coffee.
“I miss coffee too,” she grumbled, and then turned her attention back to her breakfast.
After returning from Olivia’s house the previous evening, they had stayed up late, rehashing all that they had learned. Worried that Olivia might still be a target if the killer believed she had seen something, Marie had agreed to stay next door and monitor things with Eva, on the condition Olivia loan them a deck of playing cards. Danielle could only imagine what Olivia thought of it all, especially after she was left alone with the two spirits and witnessed cards floating. She wondered if Olivia might decide to have an out-of-body experience and join the card game. Danielle smiled at the thought and at the absurdity of her life.
A knock came at the door, followed by, “It’s Heather!”
Without standing, Walt focused his energy on the doorknob. The next moment, the door swung open.
Heather walked into the house, followed by Brian. With a cup of hot tea in hand, Heather said, “Good morning. I’m all out of coffee, and Brian stopped over before going to work, and he’s not really a tea guy.”
Walt motioned to the coffeepot with his mug. “Help yourself.”
“Morning, Brian,” Danielle greeted. “Heather.”
Heather took her mug of tea and sat at the table with Walt and Danielle while Brian said a quick hello and walked to the coffeepot. He grabbed a mug from an overhead cupboard and began pouring himself some coffee. “Sounds like Olivia might have been in an abusive relationship.”
“Yeah, Walt and I were talking about that last night,” Danielle said. “I thought it telling how she said she needed control of her spirit to avoid physical pain. Yet it didn’t surprise me considering what Marie had told us.”
Brian walked to the table with his coffee and sat down. “After Heather told me about last night, I asked myself, is anything ever going to surprise me again?”
Danielle chuckled. “You just accepted the fact our new neighbor can travel without her body?”
Brian shrugged. “Considering Marie’s ghost doesn’t have a problem giving me a slap when she finds me annoying, why not?”
“Marie is more a pincher than a slapper,” Heather reminded him.
“She also likes those earlobes,” Danielle added.
“I also knew about Chris’s and Lily’s out-of-body experiences. And I remember when MacLaine’s book first came out, and all the talk of her claiming to have this experience. Of course, at the time, I thought she was just another Hollywood crackpot. But if it’s possible for it to happen to someone while in a coma, why not someone who isn’t in a coma?”
“I like the way you are so open-minded and willing to accept these things,” Heather said.
Brian looked at Heather and chuckled. “After you see Walt chatting with a mountain lion, it tends to get easier to accept other insane ideas.”
Walt smiled and then said, “I heard you worked late last night.”
“Yes. I was going to come over to Heather’s afterwards, but she said she wasn’t afraid to stay home now that she didn’t see Olivia as a threat.”
“Brian told me he knows whose car it was that ran over Olivia,” Heather interjected. Both Walt and Danielle turned to Brian.
“We’re fairly certain it was Betty’s car,” Brian said.
Danielle frowned. “Betty’s?”
“Last night after the chief called me about the stuffed animal on the rearview mirror, I remembered seeing that somewhere. Drove me nuts. And then I went to where we have the car stored, and sure enough, there is a stuffed bear hanging from the mirror.”
“You impounded the car?” Danielle asked.
“It’s evidence in a crime. And for now, we have it locked up. Which is a good thing. Had we turned the car over to her family, they might have removed the bear or contaminated the car. They’re going through it again. If what she says is true, and the driver killed Betty, then they may have left some DNA evidence in the car.”
“I thought they already went through it,” Danielle asked.
“Yes, but the chief wants them to go through it again. The only prints they came up with the last time were Betty’s and Josephine’s, both of whose we would expect. Josephine admitted driving the car that morning, and it is Betty’s car,” Brian explained.
“Now what?” Walt asked.
“After I leave here, I’m going down to the station. I spoke to Darren Newsome, who agreed to meet me down there at ten thirty. He’s the only library employee we haven’t interviewed yet,” Brian said.
“That’s the new janitor, the one who replaced that Kenny guy,” Heather explained.
“We haven’t been able to talk to him,” Brian said. “He left Friday morning for Bend. Josephine told me he was supposed to be back today and gave me his phone number.”
“Possible suspect?” Walt asked.
Brian shook his head. “No. He’s only been at the library for a couple of weeks. Was hired to replace Kenny. So he wasn’t even working at the library when the letter opener went missing. But maybe he saw something.”
After Brian arrived at the police station on Thursday morning, he headed for the chief’s office while checking the messages on his cellphone. Not paying close attention to his surroundings, focusing more on the cellphone in his hand than where he was walking, he pushed open the door and stepped into the chief’s office, but stopped abruptly when he looked up and spied the chief standing with Joe at his desk. By the serious expressions of both men, and the way the chief rested one hand on Joe’s right shoulder, Brian knew he had just blundered into a private conversation.
Both men looked up, and Brian immediately apologized for walking in without knocking and started to back out when Joe said, “That’s okay, Brian.”
The chief dropped his hand from Joe’s shoulder, and Joe said, “I was just leaving.” He started to walk away when Brian asked, “Did you get to talk to Josephine Barker again?”
Joe paused and looked back at Brian. “No, I tried calling her, but she’s in interviews all day for the new position at the library.” He looked at the chief and said, “Thanks.” After leaving the office, Joe closed the door behind him.
“Is Joe okay?” Brian asked.
The chief motioned to one of the empty chairs and took a seat behind his desk while saying, “Charlie Cramer called him this morning.” Charlie Cramer had been one of Joe’s best friends from high school. He had recently been arrested for the murder of two of Joe’s other high school friends and for the attempted murder of Heather. He was currently being held without bail, pending trial.
“What did he want?”
“He wants Joe to visit him.”
“Joe’s not going to, is he?” Brian asked.
The chief shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”
The desk phone rang. MacDonald answered it, and then after he hung up, he looked at Brian and said, “Darren Newsome is here.”
“Do you have any idea who did this?” Darren asked after Brian joined him in the interrogation room and sat down at the table across from him.
“It’s still early in the investigation,” Brian said. “I understand you’ve been with the library for two weeks?”
Darren nodded. “That’s right. I still can’t believe someone murdered Betty. I can’t imagine why anyone would hurt her. She was a nice lady.”
“When was the last time you saw Betty?” Brian asked.
“Thursday. I worked that day and was planning to leave on Friday morning. My parents live in Bend. I was going to visit them.”
“And you saw Betty that day?”
“Yes. That was the last time I saw her.”
“How did she seem? Did she act like anything was wrong? Anything bothering her?”
Darren considered the question for a moment and then shook his head. “No. Not at all. I think she was excited about her promotion. She told me she was going over to Josephine’s the next morning to inventory files the library has stored over there. They wanted to do that before Josephine’s last day. She talked a little about the new librarian who was coming in this week. I think she’s starting tomorrow. Josephine told me the new woman is going to be the head librarian now. I guess Josephine’s going to stick around a little longer to get someone hired for Betty’s old job. As for Betty, she didn’t seem upset about anything. Just the opposite.”
“You don’t remember her having a problem with anyone?” Brian asked.
Darren shook his head. “No. But I really didn’t know her that long. I just moved from Bend right before I started the job. It’s not like she ever confided in me about her personal life.”
“Did you ever notice anyone Betty was especially close with?”
Darren shook his head.
“Anyone that might have acted strange toward Betty. Or perhaps Betty acted strange toward them?”
“Not that I noticed.” He paused a moment and then said, “Well, the only thing that I can think of, there is this one woman who I’ve seen a few times at the library. Josephine told me she works at the museum. The first time I saw her, I was emptying some trash cans, and she asked me if I was the new janitor. I introduced myself. Then she asked me if I was married. I said no. And then she said if I liked my job, it would be a good idea not to get too friendly with Betty, because that’s why the last janitor left.”
“What did she mean by that?” Brian asked.
Darren shrugged. “I sorta took it to mean they got romantically involved. But I could be wrong. I didn’t ask her what she meant, and I didn’t ask Betty. I just asked Josephine who the woman was.”
“Who was it?” Brian asked.
“Sorry, I don’t remember what she said the name was. It was an older woman. I just know Josephine said she worked at the museum.”
“Is there anything else?”
Darren shook his head. “No.”
“Josephine tells me she ran into you at the library early Friday morning before you left for Bend.”
“That’s right. I had left my jacket in the back room, so I stopped to pick it up before heading off to Bend. It was around six, I think. She was picking up a box of files she wanted to add to the inventory and told me Betty had loaned her the car. I wasn’t surprised. Betty had already told me she was going to Josephine’s early that morning. I just can’t believe after she left Josephine’s, someone killed her.”