A Most Curious Murder (2 page)

Jenny put fingers to her forehead, rubbing hard to make the fog in her brain go away. She was exhausted, and none of this was what she expected—coming home. She’d expected Mom, welcoming and smiling as she had been before Jim Weston died. Mom with her arms out. And that soft place on her shoulder where Jenny’s face could nuzzle.

She’d come home to forget Chicago and the divorce her now ex-husband Ronald Korman had forced on her, to forget she had no job since she had worked in Ronald’s law office, which was no more. She had no apartment, no friends, since they’d all been
their
friends and were too nervous around her or embarrassed for her since Ronald ran off with Suzy or Wendy or whatever the client’s name was—off to Guatemala but, super courteous as Ronald was, not without one last call to wish her a “good life.”

The weird little person beside her now said, “Humph,” making Fida growl. “I’ll bet you’re thinking it had to be a car that jumped the curb and took out the library, right?”

“Please . . .”

“Do you see any tire marks in the grass? Do you see where the pole is broken? A car would have knocked it over, but much
lower down. See those long slits in what’s left? Well,
I
see them fine from my vantage point. There are advantages, you know, Miss . . . eh . . . Jenny, to my . . . situation. Those are axe slits. Bet you anything.” She nodded hard, spraying Jenny with raindrops from her hood. “And just look at the books. Thrown all over the place. Flattened like a herd of dead possums. Wouldn’t have been lying around like that if a car hit the post. They would’ve fallen closer. Some would’ve been left inside the little house. And can you imagine
all
the books being shredded to smithereens by a slipping and sliding car?”

“I’m going in the house now . . .”

Zoe ignored her. “And see how someone stomped a few?” She pointed to the clear print of a shoe on the back of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
. “Look at the pages. Torn out. Thrown about. The rain got ’em or they’d be blowing to the four winds. Or even one wind, which we have today—out of the west. I like a west wind personally because it comes from where the sun goes down and means a time of rest.”

She stopped to look around. “I don’t see the sign-out sheets.” She frowned at Jenny, then pointed to a soggy mess of papers in the street. “Oh dear, there they are. Soaked. The names will be gone. Wiped away. I don’t, personally, like to see names wiped away like that—as if they’d never been. It makes me sad.”

“Sign-out sheets for the books?”

Zoe nodded. “People take a book, leave a book, and sometimes leave a date they’ll bring the book back.”

Jenny listened.

“Some leave requests for a certain book, and your mother calls around until she finds it. That’s what I mean—the sign-out sheets. Too bad. Lost to the world forever. Something to think about.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” Jenny meant it with all her heart.

“Sorry. It takes a little magic to figure out the world.” Zoe flipped a hand at her. “You don’t seem to have any in you. Too bad. A thing to fix while you’re here.”

“You make no sense.”

“I know, but Mr. Carroll taught me to keep talking—words and words and words—until the words sort themselves out and everything is clear, or becomes completely unclear and it doesn’t matter anymore. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

Jenny shook her head. Bothered or not, she was far behind this Zoe Zola, with her hands twitching, mind flitting, eyes blinking. Far behind this little Sherlock Holmes who smelled trouble coming at her.

“Take that,” the woman said.

Jenny followed a stubby finger pointing toward crumpled and twisted book pages. “I see manic glee here. I see retribution. I see—well, what else could there be? Maybe a teenager who hates school and books and anything that reminds her of learning. Or a man who flunked out of college because of a terrible paper on Coleridge. You know, of course, that Charlotte Brontë thought Coleridge an exceedingly ugly man. Anyway, to me, this looks very much as if somebody wanted to get even for a thing no one else remembers.”

Curiouser and curiouser
, Jenny couldn’t help but think. She wished her sister, Lisa the Good, wasn’t filming a documentary in Montana and had come home, too—a grand family reunion to discuss Jenny’s recent divorce and make plans for her amazing future.

And by the way, Lisa, would you please deal with this odd little lady who lives next door to us?

“I know what you’re thinking.” The round, blue eyes opened very wide again. “And I am not a crazy person. I smell things. I know things. Personally, I think I have a rare gift.”

“I wasn’t thinking crazy.”

“Yes you were, but I’m not crazy at all. I am unique, you might say. I am . . . well . . . different from others, but then that’s what I’ve always been, and, if
I
may say so, if you come into the world a certain way, you might as well take advantage of it and surprise people.” She narrowed her eyes and studied Jenny.

“Like you, I imagine. Home because you’re freshly divorced. Or did I make that up? Home because you don’t know what to do with your life. Home because you’ve had no training in disappointment. Though I did hear you were badly dumped before you left Bear Falls.”

“Really?” Jenny was beyond being mad.

“That’s why we’ll be friends.”

Friends?
Jenny didn’t even like her. Nosy. Obnoxious. She opened her mouth to tell her to mind her own business, then snapped it shut. “I don’t think . . .”

“I can teach you how to take
alone
and turn it into exactly what you want it to be,” Zoe went on.

And there it was—the all of it laid out like salami on a plate.
Alone
because she wasn’t lovable.
Alone
because only her mother would want her.
Alone
because the divorce was new and painful.
Alone
because she didn’t have a job.
Alone
because she had no friends.

But there was nothing new about dealing with rejection. She was a pro at that. Right back to Bear Falls, where she got her first lesson in disappointment.

“I’ll tell Dora with you.” The offer was sincere, punctuated by a small bark from Fida.

On the march to the screened porch, Fida, in a hurry to keep up, ran between and around Jenny’s legs while Zoe turned again and again to chastise her.

Certainly down the rabbit hole
, Jenny thought as she clumped up the steps. When she saw her mother, hair in paper curlers, clutching a robe around her, and bending to peer through the screen, her stomach dropped to basement level. As Jenny pulled the door open, Dora Weston stretched her neck to look beyond her visitors, out to where her Little Library used to stand. She choked back a strangled, “Oh dear!” but opened her arms to Jenny.

It was a sad tea party, three women around the kitchen table, Fida at their feet, and Ed Warner, chief of police of Bear Falls, sitting uncomfortably on a rush-bottom chair off to one side. Everyone had a flowered cup of steaming tea in front of them. Ed Warner’s cup sat next to a piece of apple pie, untouched as he filled out his incident report.

“How you doin’? Didn’t know you were back in town,” was the first thing he’d said to Jenny. “Thought you’d gone off to make good in the big world. Doesn’t always turn out, does it?”

Same humorless, dour boy Jenny remembered from high school. Even then he’d had the personality of a disgruntled beaver.

“You know we’ve got our eighteenth high school reunion coming up? Case you’re interested. Me and the wife are going.”

Jenny scowled at the thought of a high school reunion; she’d rather be embalmed than attend.

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Jenny smiled at the man. “Right now, I’m really worried about that disaster out front. My mom’s upset, I can tell you.”

Dora Weston nodded and took a sip of her tea. She pulled her light-blue robe, with satin tie at the neck, around her, then patted self-consciously at the toilet paper curlers in her hair.

“Bet she is. Terrible accident.”

Zoe made a noise.

“Hit-and-run,” he said, and then he remembered the words weren’t the best to use around Dora. He’d been too young to be a cop when Jim Weston was killed, but there wasn’t a soul in town that didn’t remember the day. “Probably a car slid off the street in the rain.”

Zoe snorted and rolled her eyes at Jenny, who ignored her, thinking hard about mosquitoes and gnats and other little pests.

“You know Zoe Zola? Mom’s neighbor.”

Jenny remembered Ed as the kid with ears big enough to lift him off the ground and a long body skinny enough to slip through a keyhole. The kids called him Bobblehead because he couldn’t keep his head straight on his shoulders. The thought made Jenny smile until she remembered they had called her Morticia because of her long, black hair and pale skin that no amount of sun could darken.

Ed tipped his head, wobbling just a little. “Good to see you, Ms. Zola.”

“I’ve got some ideas about what really happened here, Chief.” Zoe sat up as tall as she could get, mustering authority. “Solid ideas. Good ideas. Ideas to bring an end to such tomfoolery once and for all.”

“Really?” Ed chuckled, giving her a bemused look. “Well, we’ll just have to hear your ideas, won’t we?”

“Malicious destruction of property,” Zoe muttered at the chief. “That’s the first of it. But not the worst of it.”

He gave her a dubious look. “Terrible thing. As I said, probably a car, sliding off the road.”

Zoe sighed. “And how could anyone do that and leave no tire tracks behind?”

He tipped his head and half closed his dark eyes. For a while, he only thought. When he’d decided something, he said to Zoe, “Seem to know a lot about a lot of things, Ms. Zola.”

“I have some ideas that will help. And some that will hinder. I’d like to share them all with you, Chief.”

“Let me get the facts down first, if you don’t mind. Need to have a little talk with Mrs. Weston here.”

“Did you rope the area off so gawkers won’t spoil the crime scene?” Zoe charged ahead. “There are book thieves and book burners and book runner-overs everywhere in the world, you know.”

Ed took a deep breath and shook his head. “Not what you’d call a major crime scene, Ms. Zola.”

Zoe’s eyebrows rose. “On the contrary, you realize that the people of Bear Falls have been attacked? Their books stolen from them.”

Ed eyed her, then turned back to Jenny. “Your mom get any threats? Got any enemies?”

Jenny opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted.

“I’m sitting right here, Ed Warner. And I have a brain,” an indignant Dora piped up, her back straightening, her curlers jiggling. “If you have questions, please address me directly.” She licked her lips and pushed her chin higher. “I may be getting old, but years haven’t made me stupid, nor dead, for that matter. And no, nobody’s threatened me.”

The chief looked apologetic. “Sorry, Mrs. Weston—I hate to bother you with some of this.”

“Talking about it won’t hurt me any more than looking at my murdered books.”

Zoe jigged her head from side to side. “We’ve got malicious destruction of property going on. We’ve got ruination of a dream, a greater offense. We’ve got tampering with great minds. We can’t let him get away with it.”

“Who?” Ed Warner demanded.

“I don’t like to name names, but since you’re demanding the way you are—”

“I haven’t demanded a thing, ma’am.”

Zoe’s small face clamped shut. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at him.

“This is totally impossible.” Jenny threw her hands up.

“So what?” Zoe turned to her. “‘Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

“Stop it! Don’t quote quotes at us! If you know who destroyed Mom’s library, tell us.” Jenny was ready to shake the little woman.

Zoe squinted at her—one eye half open, the other closed. “All right then. It was Adam Cane.”

“Adam Cane? The old man who lives on the other side of you? The Adam Cane of the Cane family in that mansion over on Oak? I’ve known him since I was a kid.”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh, Zoe.” Dora shook her head. “Maybe Adam’s a little cranky, but he’s not a hooligan.”

“Then why’d he threaten to kill Fida, I’d like to know?” Zoe folded her arms across her chest and stared at them—one by one.

“Your dog?” Jenny asked.

“You know her name well enough.”

“He did that?”

“For peeing on his front lawn, which, if you ask me, is nothing but a field of weeds anyway. And—also if you ask me, but I
don’t suppose you will—a little dog pee is the best thing to ever grace those soulless sods of his.”

“But Fida’s not my mother’s responsibility.” Jenny couldn’t help herself. “Why didn’t he knock over some of those little statues in your front yard if he wanted to get even with you?”

The chief sat back and let the two go at it.

“So you’ve noticed my gardens.” Zoe looked pleased.

“Just getting out of my car this morning. Couldn’t help but notice. Come on! Lighted houses!”

“Of course. I have a fairy garden par excellence, if you ask me, and you haven’t. You must come see what I’ve done, and in the back of the house, too. I’ll walk you around one day, explain the little houses and introduce you to the fairies who live in them.”

She clapped her hands, then thought hard, setting her chin on one small fist. “Now what were we saying?”

“If you don’t mind . . .” The chief held a pencil over his notebook.

“Oh, yes,” Zoe said. “Did you think Fida’s the only thing Adam Cane objects to? When I first moved here, he came to my front door. I thought he was the welcome wagon, but all he wanted was my signature on a petition calling for your mother to take down her library. He said it brought too many cars along our street. Twenty books are all she had in there at any one time. As if so few books would cause a traffic jam. The petition said zoning rules dictated there are to be no unattached buildings in Bear Falls. I asked him what about my shed, and he changed the subject, since he has an old shed as big as mine in his backyard. Adam Cane doesn’t like people to be happy. Seems to swipe against his grain.”

“There are good reasons, Zoe,” Dora said. “Adam’s family did terrible things to him.”

Chief Warner broke in. “It wasn’t you, by any chance, Ms. Zoe? I mean, you didn’t destroy the Little Library ’cause you’re mad at Mr. Cane? I hear you were on the spot this morning.”

Zoe’s eyebrows shot up. “I think I better nip things right here in the bud—a garden metaphor, if you get my drift.”

Jenny let her exasperation fly. “We not only don’t get your drift, we don’t understand a thing you say.”

“You know what that means?”

Jenny didn’t bother answering.

“It means you’re not a deep thinker. I do so hope we can fix that while you’re here.”

Ed snapped his notebook shut and stood. He looked oddly pleased to be on his way.

“I hope you talk to Mr. Cane.” Zoe spoke to the man’s belt buckle.

Ed smiled a fatherly smile. He might have patted Zoe on the head—which Jenny was certain he’d live to regret.

“You want me to talk to Adam, Mrs. Weston?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Ed.” Dora turned to Jenny. “You decide, Jen. I don’t want trouble.”

Jenny hesitated. “Of course, go talk to Adam Cane. Mention that the library and the books have to be replaced. We can get him an estimate of what it will cost.”

“How can my book box ever be replaced?” Dora hugged herself. “Jim was so careful to copy our house exactly. Anything else will be too sad to look at.”

Ed set one foot on the creaky dining room floor, heading out toward the front of the house. “I’ll talk to Adam. I know how to handle him. Oh, and we’ll be taking pictures, looking around to see what else we can find. I’m taking some of that wood from the library box and a couple of your books. One’s got a footprint
on it. Muddy. Won’t get much in fingerprints, though, I imagine, not with the rain. You can clean up after we’re gone.”

The last was for Jenny, who thanked him and smiled, happy to see him go.

Halfway across the living room, Ed turned to assure Dora he’d be working hard on this and that he’d be in touch, soon as he found out anything.

“Hope you build it right back up, Mrs. Weston.” He called over his shoulder, “People in town will miss that Little Library of yours.”

Dora shook her head at the man and fought tears.

Zoe, following close behind, stopped him before he reached the door. “Chief, maybe you want to talk to the other neighbors. Somebody might’ve seen something, or at least heard the sound of chopping in the middle of the night.”

He turned less-than-friendly eyes down at her. “I know how to do my job, ma’am. Hope you’ll let me get to it.”

He was gone, the stomp out to the porch a little harder than when he’d come in.

Zoe sighed, coming back into the kitchen. “Oh my. ‘It’s exactly like a riddle with no answer.’ Poor man,” she said, half to herself. “He doesn’t like me at all. I don’t understand. I tried to be so helpful.”

She put fingers to her nose. “Oh dear. I wish people would listen.”

Instead of hooting as Jenny wanted to, she said, “You know what, Zoe? Sometimes you don’t make any sense at all.”

“Maybe not to you, Jenny Weston. As I said before, no magic.”