Nikki drove north for twenty minutes, ostensibly fleeing for Canada, but mostly just fleeing. As she left the farms and ranches behind, the Colville Forest closed in around her. The soothing monotony of pine merged with the hum of the road under the tires and the chug of the engine. She rolled down the window and let the wind buffet around the car, drowning out the sound of the radio and everything but her thoughts.
A few more pine trees passed and finally she pulled over in the barest scrap of shade caused by a straggly evergreen. The engine clicked as it cooled. She found that in times of stress her thoughts would turn to her old partner. Val Robinson had been forty-something, sophisticated, and easily the coolest person Nikki had ever met, but her take-no-prisoners, keep-no-friends philosophy had been a shock.
Nikki closed her eyes and leaned her head back, stretching out her neck. “I’m starting to think you weren’t that crazy, Val,” she said to the empty car. Talking to Val’s ghost in her car was becoming a bad habit. Val’s ghost never said anything useful in reply. Usually she smoked a cigarette at Nikki and said something useless, like “I told you so.” Nikki took a few deep breaths and then reached for her phone.
“Hi,” said Jane, picking up. “Did you get Ylina? Are you on your way back?”
“Jane, why didn’t you tell me about my father?”
“What about your father?”
“Why didn’t you tell me my father went to prison?”
“Your father’s in prison?” Jane sounded shocked. Which meant, since Jane was an even worse liar than Nikki, that Jane was truly shocked.
“Jane, have you ever run a background check on my family?”
“No, why would I do that? It would be rude to do that to my own team. I have very clear ethical boundaries about data usage, you know.”
Nikki sighed, and rubbed her temple with her free hand. She did know. This job was making her suspicious of everyone. Suspicious and cranky. And hungry.
“Nikki, what’s going on?” asked Jane.
“I don’t really want to cover it on the phone. I need you to do a few things for me.”
“OK,” said Jane.
“I need you to tell Grandma to go pick my mom up. I left her out on Old Kaniksu Road.”
“You left your mom?”
“Yes. We’re not going into it.”
“OK, telling Peg to go get Nell. What else do you need?”
“I need you to borrow Z’ev’s rental car and come meet me at the library.”
“OK,” said Jane, from the shift in her voice, Nikki could tell that Jane was already moving. “Should I get the girls?”
“No, just you, I think. The library only has two microfiche machines.”
“No problem. What else?”
“Bring a sandwich. I’m starving.”
“Got it. See you in a few.”
The line went dead. “See, Val?” said Nikki to the resident ghost. “Friends are useful. I can rely on them.”
The Kaniksu Falls Public Library looked like it had been designed by Mr. Brady from the Brady Bunch, clad in vertical wood siding, painted beige, and faced with a peculiar multi-colored slate. For the last decade, the library had been run by a series of dedicated librarians who attempted to lure the town’s population of loggers and farmers into reading through events and community outreach. It was working. There were three separate book clubs, a movie club, and a youth garden, whatever that was. A bulletin board inside the lobby announced that this month’s General Fiction Book Club was continuing their Banned Books series by reading The Handmaid’s Tale.
“Have you read The Handmaid’s Tale?” The librarian’s nametag proclaimed her to be Bronwyn Tully. She was tiny, with a brown bun, a hemp skirt, and a pair of Birkenstocks.
“Yes,” said Nikki. “I didn’t like it. The main character was too passive. But it’s very,” she paused, and redirected her sentence. “Are you really getting any men to read it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bronwyn. “Our group is actually about fifty percent male. Besides next month we’re reading a Raymond Chandler. The trick is to keep the reading list lively. And, of course, to serve cookies.”
“Librarians—pushing feminism since 1897,” said Nikki.
“Long before that, dear,” said Bronwyn, her eyes twinkling. “Now, what can I help you with today?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” said Jane, rushing through the sliding door, panting slightly.
Bronwyn looked amused, but her eyes narrowed slightly upon spotting Jane’s computer. “You’ll need to sign up for a library card if you want to use our wi-fi.”
“No problem,” said Jane, then looked to Nikki. “Do I need wi-fi?”
“Actually, I want to look up articles from the Kaniksu Tribune.”
“How far back? And are you looking for a specific topic?” Bronwyn was already walking them toward the back of the library.
“About fifteen years. Topic was a drug bust of a local resident named Phillipe Lanier, who was then extradited to Canada. It would also have involved a Sheriff’s Deputy named Merv Smalls.”
“Merv Smalls who’s now our sheriff?” asked Bronwyn, glancing up at Nikki.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Bronwyn nodded and seemed to be thinking. “Any way to narrow it down to a specific month?”
“The arrest, I think, would have been in the spring.”
“That’s at least closer. Here are the microfiche machines. I’ll be back with the film and show you how to load it.”
Jane waited until Bronwyn disappeared into a back office, but Nikki could tell by the way she was practically hopping that it was a hard wait.
“Your dad was arrested?”
“Yes, for smuggling marijuana. Apparently, he didn’t abandon his family. Apparently, he was actually sent to prison in Canada.”
“Holy crap!”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“And your mom didn’t tell you?”
“Not until today.”
“And we’re here to read the truth for ourselves?” Jane clasped her hands under her chin, her voice throbbing slightly. She had a very romantic view on the liberating power of research.
“Not exactly,” said Nikki. “I believe that she told me what she thinks is the truth, but there were a couple of problems with her story. There’s also the fact that Ylina is dead.”
“What?” Jane’s hands dropped. “Shouldn’t we be doing something about that?”
“We are doing something about that,” said Nikki. “I think the two events are related.”
“Here we are,” said Bronwyn returning a stack of dusty boxes. She extracted the tiny roll of film from the box and quickly and carefully inserted it into the machine. “Your best bet is to turn to section B where they used to keep the Police Beat. The editor used to enjoy making fun of ‘filthy hippies’ and the like. He would most likely have published a drug arrest.” Bronwyn looked from Nikki to Jane’s pent-up expression. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need some other time frames.”
“Thanks,” said Nikki.
Bronwyn walked back to the front desk, her skirt swishing as she walked.
“I wonder if there’s a course in discretion included in the librarian curriculum.”
“Who cares about librarians?” demanded Jane. “Can we please get back to Ylina being dead, your father having been in jail, and how are those two possibly related?”
“My mother said that Dad bought cars at Crazy Cooter’s, ‘fixed them up’ and then drove into Canada to pick up pot. When he started to do it multiple times he switched to having a tow truck driver tow it back across the border. The problem is that my Dad had zero car skills. My grandfather used to say that dad could talk a pig into bacon, but he had the mechanical aptitude of a donkey.”
“Bill Pims! The owner of the auto body shop! You said he was converting cars to go across the border. You think he helped your dad?”
“I think he must have,” said Nikki.
“And then he must have taken over the operation when your dad got arrested,” said Jane, nodding, fixing the puzzle pieces in her mind.
“I don’t think so,” said Nikki. “When Jackson and I were in his shop, he talked about a boss.”
“Well, then who’s the boss? Besides Tony Danza.”
“I have some theories, but I want to look through the old newspaper articles and see if Bill Pims or any of Dad’s other associates ever got arrested or mentioned in the paper.”
Nikki sometimes wondered, if things had been different, if she had gone left instead of right, if she had never met Z’ev or Mrs. Merrivel and joined Carrie Mae, if she would have been a decent linguist or made it in the world of academics. It was in moments like this that she realized the answer was a resounding no. Searching through old newspapers did not fascinate her. It made her bored and twitchy. Meanwhile, Jane giggled over the ads and pointed out “really interesting” articles on town politics. They found her father’s arrest quickly enough and, after that, a smattering of mentions as the case wound its way through the court. But Bill Pims’ name was absent from all records. In fact, nothing about the smuggling scheme was ever mentioned. It was limited strictly to Phillipe’s possession charge and his extradition.
After the last article, Nikki sat back in her chair, kicked her feet out, laced her hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. Her mother had always hated the pose. She said it wasn’t feminine, but Nikki knew that it was because it reminded her of Phillipe.
Jane, who knew what the thinking pose meant, began to tidy up by reboxing the microfilm and collecting their print-outs of the articles.
“It’s the only way it all fits,” said Nikki to the ceiling.
“Mmm,” said Jane, who was used to this too.
“We need proof,” said Nikki. “It’s going to be a shock.”
“Mm-hmm,” agreed Jane.
“Someone to testify in court would be good too, but I think it’s going to be a tough sell.”
“Well, yes,” said Jane.
“And Donny. I’ll have to persuade Donny to cooperate, but I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“Not a problem.” Jane kept her voice pitched at a soothing murmur.
“Right,” said Nikki standing up. “We just might make it out of this without totally blowing our cover.”
“That’s nice,” said Jane, who clearly hadn’t been worried.
“But first we need to go see Bill Pims.”
“OK!”
“Jane, are you doing that thing where you have no idea what I’m talking about, but you’re going to be really supportive anyway?”
“You always explain eventually and it helps you to talk it out.”
“Thanks. Also, did you bring that sandwich? I’m still starving.”
“It’s in the car,” said Jane.