Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 05 - Just Ducky Read online

  My real purpose for visiting the gym was the hope of running into Tina Traylor and conversing with her about Ducky’s death. I wondered how angry she’d been at Ducky’s refusal to sell her the books she desired for her collection. Was it enough to seek revenge? It seemed far-fetched as far as motives go, but I didn’t want to overlook any little conceivable possibility. The argument she’d had with Ducky on the morning of the librarian’s death had appeared to be heated, and could have centered around something even more potent than Ducky’s refusal to sell Tina the books. If nothing else, Tina might have some insight into Ducky’s death that I hadn’t heard about yet.

  “I’ll run by the gym the next chance I get,” I told Stone. “By the way, did Traylor happen to say anything about being surprised Ducky would commit suicide?”

  “No, not really, because Elroy inferred he thought she was pretty off-balanced, or ‘one flounder short of a fish fry,’ as he put it. I told him you didn’t believe she’d commit suicide and were busy looking in to it. I didn’t tell him I was involved, or that it was my principle purpose for arranging a meeting with him.”

  “It sounds to me like we both garnered some interesting information today, and I really appreciate your help. It’s so nice to have company in my quest for the truth about Ducky’s death.”

  “Happy to be of assistance, my dear. By the way, Elroy took tomorrow off because he has a dental appointment in the morning. He asked me to go bass fishing with him in the afternoon at the farm pond he caught the ten-pounder in this last weekend. You don’t mind, do you?” Stone asked.

  “Not at all, and you don’t have to ask my permission to do anything you want to do. Just make sure you’re home and cleaned up by six, because we need to be at the ranch by seven for supper tomorrow night. And hey, who knows, fishing with Elroy Traylor all day, you might just learn something else of importance to aid in our investigation.”

  Stone groaned, and replied, “Probably nothing any more significant than what lure’s best to use for top-water bass fishing. But that’s extremely important too, you know.”

  I laughed and told Stone to get back to what he was doing until it was time to get cleaned up and dressed to go to the Hallowed Hog for supper. He had heartily endorsed my suggestion to eat out and leave the cooking to a professional.

  * * *

  When I woke up Wednesday morning, I could hear Stone’s baritone voice crooning in the master bathroom while he was drying off after his shower. I recognized the theme song of “The Sportsman’s Friend,” Harold Ensley’s old fishing show. Gone fishin’, instead of just a’ wishin’. I heard this verse reverberating inside the bathroom walls several times, and had to grin at Stone’s youthful exuberance. His energy and unbridled zest for life always brought a smile to my face. It was just one of the many things I found so attractive about my new husband.

  “You must be excited about your fishing trip with Traylor this afternoon, Bing,” I said in jest, as he walked through the bedroom door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You didn’t wake me. I was already stirring, but I would not have wanted to miss hearing your lovely singing voice this morning. Crosby had nothing on you, my dear. On the contrary, listening to me sing could seriously make your ears bleed, so I promise never to put you through that agony,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, your singing can’t be all that bad.”

  “Trust me, it is that bad! So horrendous, in fact, my Sunday school choir director once asked me if I wouldn’t rather stand off to the side by the manger scene, silently, in a costume depicting a shepherd, throughout the entire Christmas program. I felt honored to be singled out, but thought the choir desperately needed my contribution to the harmony of the carols we were going to perform. But, when I told the choir director my concerns, and also that I really didn’t want to draw attention to myself as a shepherd and have people staring at me during the recital, she said, ‘Then perhaps you ought to just pretend you’re singing, sweetheart, or hum quietly to yourself.’ Well, as it turned out, I was a very convincing mute shepherd, if I have to say so myself.”

  Stone laughed at my anecdote, and asked, “Is that why you never belt out the National Anthem at sporting events?”

  “Yes, it’s very fortunate for you and others around me that I learned to lip-sync early on in life.”

  Stone chuckled and grabbed my foot, which was resting at the end of the bed. He began pulling on my toes one by one, because he knew it drove me nuts and made me emit high-pitched screams. When he got to the little one, he asked, “Is this squealing little piggy going to stay in bed all day? If not, get dressed, and by the time you get downstairs I’ll have a cup of coffee waiting for you.”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day!” I said. I jumped out of bed, kissed Stone briefly, and headed to the bathroom. I was ready to face a new day, and praying we could put the true nature of Ducky’s death to rest by sundown. In retrospect, it might have been better to have just prayed that my toes really would morph into piglets while I stood on stage, at the Super Bowl, holding a microphone and torturing the millions of people in the viewing audience with my rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

  * * *

  I thought it was a good time to box up all of Ducky’s personal items at the library and drop them off at her house with her husband. There probably wasn’t anything of monetary value in the paraphernalia she kept at the library, but I was sure there’d be some sentimental aspect to a few of the items as far as Quentin was concerned. He deserved to have her stuff, and I needed to make space in the drawers for my own worthless, but necessary, crap.

  I informed Stone of my plans, and he volunteered to accompany me to carry the boxes since he wasn’t due to meet up with Traylor until eleven. I figured I could carry the one box I anticipated would hold everything that belonged to Ducky, which probably would weigh no more than five or ten pounds, but I’d welcome Stone’s company, and it’d be a good opportunity to give him a tour of the building I’d be in charge of, starting on Monday. He would, no doubt find it as scintillating as watching a slug cross the road, but I felt confident he’d at least feign interest in my new working environment. Just as I had feigned interest in his long-winded and very animated description of the best way to “present” your bait to a bass earlier, as we ate store-bought cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

  Using my key, I let us into the building, locking the door behind me so the library didn’t fill up with patrons wanting to check out books. We decided to take care of the chore of cleaning out the desk first. For such a stern, task-oriented person, Ducky kept her desk drawers in a very messy and disorganized fashion, almost exactly like I kept mine.

  The top drawer on the right side of the desk contained typical office supplies, such as pens, scotch tape, stapler, a roll of stamps, and things of that nature, along with dozens of tootsie rolls and empty candy wrappers. I was amused to find a half-full Daffy Duck Pez dispenser among the conglomeration of items, knowing it’d probably been a gag gift because of its association with her nickname.

  The middle drawer had several notebooks, including the one in which I had previously found the employee’s W-9’s, contact information, and time sheets. There were unused plastic library cards scattered throughout, a couple of McDonald’s french fry containers, a half-eaten Subway sandwich, now green and furry, and a crumpled up Valentine’s Day card signed by Tom Melvard. I was somewhat surprised to see a first-generation Kindle. What did it say about the future of local libraries when even their head librarians preferred to read their books on an electronic device?

  The object I found most unexpected was in the bottom drawer; a first-edition copy of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I opened the book to the copyright page, and handed it to Stone. “This is obviously from Ducky’s collection, and worth thousands of dollars, I’m certain. It’s really old, copyrighted in 1958.”

  “Indeed,” Stone said. “Even more ancient
than you, if I’m not mistaken.”

  I closed the book and whacked him on the head with it, probably not the recommended way to handle a valuable first-edition copy of a classic novel.

  “Ouch!” He hollered, in mock pain. He took the book from me and opened it. “Check out the title page. It’s even signed by the author. Why in the world would Ducky keep something like this in her desk at work?”

  “Could she have had some kind of arrangement to show it, or sell it to a potential buyer, and then brought it here to execute the transaction?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” he replied. As Stone continued to sort through the drawer, I took my phone out of my fanny pack and googled the book title.

  “If the information on the website is accurate, this book is worth in the neighborhood of seventy-five-hundred dollars if in great condition, which I think this copy would qualify as. It’s in quite good condition, at the very least. Well, let’s put it in the box and then I’ll show you around the library,” I said.

  I started my tour in the hearth room with the floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace, and the worn leather couches. “Isn’t this cozy? The furniture in this little nook needs to be replaced, but I love the rustic lodge feel of the old building. It’s so inviting, or at least it was before I found Ducky hanging from the rafters in here.”

  After I’d shown him the entire main floor, I asked, “Would you like to see the basement?”

  “Sure,” he said. I expected him to decline the offer, but figured he was playing the “feigned interest” card to the hilt, so I switched on the lights, which didn’t amount to much, and led him down the stairs. There wasn’t much to see, and you couldn’t see what little there was to see very clearly due to the dim lighting. We stopped at the shelving unit containing the mops, brooms, and cleaning solutions first.

  “Tom’s janitorial supplies, obviously, and the stacks of boxes are old library books, no doubt,” Stone said. Then he pointed to the far corner. “What’s that over there?”

  As Stone headed toward the weight-lifting contraption, he said, “Oh, yeah, I remember you saying Paul worked out down here during library hours when he wasn’t on the clock. I think Wyatt told me he was training to be a cage-fighter.”

  “Yes, that’s right. He’s so quiet that I can’t imagine him fighting in a cage. Why would anyone submit himself to such a brutal sport? Staying fit is wonderful, sure, but having one’s head repeatedly slammed against a wire cage? No, thank you. That’s as gruesome and disgusting as dog or chicken fighting. But why would Paul need to train to compete in what seems like nothing more structured than a common bar brawl?”

  “There’s a lot of skill and finesse involved,” Stone said. “It’s not just a matter of brute strength. It requires a lot of training and practice. There are karate, judo, and jujitsu techniques involved, as well as wrestling and other technical maneuvers.”

  “If you say so,” I said with a shudder, thinking about the pain the cage fighters must endure on a regular basis.

  “I actually enjoy watching it,” Stone said.

  “Oh jeez, there’s something about you I could have gone without learning.”

  “It’s one of those man things, Lexie, that you’d never understand. No more than I’ll ever understand how you can stand to watch more than thirty seconds of The Housewives of ‘Anywhere.’ And how about the catfights those women get involved in? Talk about brutal!”

  “Touché,” I said, just as we were both startled by repetitive sounds over our heads. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know, but it sounded like footsteps. Didn’t you lock the door behind us when we came in?”

  “Yes, I’m positive I did.”

  The sound started up again, and there was most definitely someone upstairs in the library. I hurried over to the bottom of the steps, and hollered up the stairwell. “Hello?”

  I heard the footsteps coming closer to the door at the top of the stairs, so I hollered again, louder this time. “Hello. Who’s up there? We’re down here in the basement and we’ll be right up!”

  Stone was by my side now. When there was again no response, he gently pushed me back with his right arm, and whispered, “Stay here while I go upstairs and see who’s there. I know they heard you that time, and aren’t responding for some reason. My guess is that whoever’s upstairs is up to no good.”

  “Wait! Do you have a weapon?” When Stone grabbed a broom, I felt a sense of panic. “Really? You’re going to sweep them to death if they threaten you? What if they have a gun? Will that broom stop bullets? Let’s just call 9-1-1.”

  “Okay, you’ll have to call, because I left my phone in the car,” he said.

  “Oh no! I must have left mine upstairs on the desk when I took it out to google the value of that book.”

  “Swell. Then I don’t see any other choice but for me to go up there and see what’s going on, while you remain here.”

  I was going to try to convince him it wasn’t worth the risk. There’d already been one corpse in the library just a week ago. I didn’t want the love of my life being the second one. But it became a moot point when we heard the door at the top of the stairs shut, and the deadbolt being slammed home.

  “Oh crap!” I whispered. “What do we do now?”

  Stone did a quick appraisal of our surroundings. The locked door was the only exit. There were no windows in the basement, and we had no way to contact anyone for help. We listened carefully as we heard what sounded like one set of footsteps cross the entire expanse of the library and exit through the front door.

  “Okay, let’s not panic,” Stone said. “Let’s concentrate on what resources we have at our disposal.”

  “Which isn’t much, unless we’re going to clean our way out of here,” I added, with a slight wavering of my voice.

  “Well, we’ve got one thing going for us. Elroy is expecting me to show up at his office at eleven to go fishing. When I don’t arrive, he might get concerned about my whereabouts.”

  “Concerned enough to call the police?” I asked.

  “No, I doubt it,” Stone replied, with a long drawn-out sigh. “He’ll probably just think I’ve changed my mind, or forgotten about our plans to go fishing. He’ll most likely just head on out to the pond and go fishing by himself.”

  “Well, it might mean spending a long, boring day down here, but when we don’t show up at the ranch for supper, Andy and Wendy will try to contact us at the inn, and when that fails, they’ll try both our cell phones. I’m sure they’ll be concerned when they can’t contact us, and alert Wyatt, if no one else,” I reasoned.

  “That’s true. Guess we might as well try to get comfortable on the concrete floor and wait it out, while we try to come up with a better plan.”

  Stone had me sit on the padded weight-lifting bench, as he wadded up some cleaning rags to make a semi-comfortable cushion for sitting on the floor. We chatted about who could have locked us in the basement of the library, and other matters of our self-imposed investigation, before switching to other mundane topics of conversation, for what seemed like hours. I was disappointed when I looked at my watch and only forty-five minutes had passed.

  We decided to try to relax and rest, and both ended up drifting off to sleep for several hours. We woke up and chatted some more, played the game called twenty questions, and wiled away the long, boring hours as creatively as we could.

  It had been chilly in the library with the thermostat lowered while it was closed, but the temperature seemed to be dropping even more. I was shivering and wishing I hadn’t left my windbreaker draped across the back of the chair upstairs. Stone hadn’t even worn a jacket, so I asked him if he felt the temperature dropping too.

  “I was just thinking about that,” he said. “I can hear the furnace running, but it sounds like its starving for air and struggling to operate properly. Do you know where the maintenance room is located, with the furnace, water heater, and all?”

  “Yes, across the hall from the restroom upsta
irs.”

  “Dang it! I was afraid of that, since I didn’t see any place down here it could be. Why don’t you come down here and sit by me. If I can hold you next to my body, I can help keep you warm.”

  I moved down to the floor, where Stone wrapped an arm around me, and I found it did help significantly having his body heat radiating warmth to me. We began to talk about Stone’s projects at the inn, and what else might need to be updated. I found myself trying hard to concentrate and finding it difficult to do so. His comments were really confusing me for some reason.

  “Why would we want to put a new toilet in the kitchen?” I asked. “Isn’t the one we got in there already good enough? Do we need a new one in the pantry, too?”

  Stone turned my face towards his with his free hand, “Are you all right, Lexie? Suddenly you’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m beginning to feel light-headed.”

  “I’m starting to get a headache, myself. I’m beginning to wonder if someone has done something to the furnace to affect the flow of oxygen to it, and allow carbon monoxide to build up in the building,” Stone said. “Confusion, light-headedness, and headache are all symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  “I don’t smell any gas. Can’t it be extremely harmful?” I felt as if I were about to pass out.

  “Yes, even deadly. Carbon monoxide has no scent, which is why we didn’t notice it,” he replied. “Did you know a scent is intentionally added to natural gas so it can be detected? I recall seeing an old furnace back in that little storeroom on the other side of this basement. I’ll go check it out. Even though it looked antiquated, maybe it’s the one we hear running.”

  “No, that furnace isn’t functional anymore. When it shot craps, they built the new maintenance room across from the restroom upstairs, and put the new one in there. I remember Ducky told me about it when she took me through the library.”

  “We can’t stay down here breathing this toxic gas until later on this evening. We’ve got to come up with a way to get help. With the furnace upstairs, I can’t check it out, or turn it off. Oh, hey! There’s the fuse box on the far wall! Thank God! I can turn the power off to the furnace. We’ll just have to deal with the colder temperatures, which is better than being asphyxiated.”