“I most certainly was not!”
“What?!”
Penelope sighed. “I wasn’t attracted. Not really. I just wondered—”
Penelope couldn’t believe a mere delusion was making her flush scarlet. “Must you be so vulgar?”
“They’re not all that way. People can be good. And fair. And courageous and selfless. My mother was. My father was . . . for a while, before my mother died. And my aunt definitely is—and so are the good people of this town.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. Then I raised my chin, turned on my heel, and strode back toward the checkout counter. Thankfully, the Jack Shepard delusion of mine didn’t follow.
CHAPTER 11
Midnight, I dare say. . . . That’s the word.
The time when the graves give up their dead, and ghosts walk.
TWO HOURS LATER, at three minutes after nine, Sadie rang up the last of the day’s
No longer capable of smiles, I wisely let Sadie answer their chatty questions and politely send them on their way. The moment they departed, I threw the lock, flipped the sign to read CLOSED, and fell against the door.
“Tired?” Aunt Sadie asked. As she began to empty the register and count the day’s receipts, I collapsed into a nearby chair and stared vacantly at the intentionally rustic charm of the exposed beams in our ceiling.
“Now, why would I be tired?” I replied. “Could it be that I was living through one of the most eventful days in my life with a horrendous hangover—the result of alcohol ingested at your urging, by the way? Or maybe it was the threat from Councilwoman Binder-Smith to shut us down? Or the State Police raid that pretty much capped our morning—and all this before we opened for business?”
Sadie clicked her tongue. “You’re babbling, dear. And, anyway, we can’t help it if a famous author drops dead in our store, now, can we?”
“What if Timothy Brennan didn’t just drop dead?” I asked, finally coming out with the question that had been nagging at me all day. “What if the autopsy suggests foul play? Lieutenant Marsh will want to pin the crime on someone.”
“What if pigs had wings?” said Aunt Sadie with a snort.
As I watched Sadie rubber-band thick wads of cash, my “babbling” continued. “If Brennan
“How do you figure that?”
“For better or worse, Brennan’s death put Buy the Book on the map, didn’t it? I mean, look at all that cash— in one day’s take. We’re making money because Brennan died here. And I really didn’t want to admit this to you—or even to myself, frankly—but Lieutenant Marsh looked me up and down this morning like I was guilty.”
“Of what?”
“Anything. Anything he can make stick. I’m sure of it. And that’s what worries me. You and I both know the state won’t take over a local investigation unless they’re asked—and Councilwoman Marjorie Binder-Smith almost certainly insisted, no doubt with a tip-off to watch
“Don’t be silly,” Aunt Sadie replied. “You’re just over-tired.” But this time her dismissal lacked conviction. I could see my words had made her begin to worry, too.
Aunt Sadie stuffed the day’s receipts into a threadbare canvas bag, which she’d used since she first took over the store from her father decades ago. She tied the bag with its frayed, gray string tucked it under her arm and headed for the stairs.
“I’m going to bed, sweetie,” Sadie called over her shoulder. “Don’t forget to turn out the lights before you come upstairs. See you in the morning.”
Despite my tired feet, I was wired. Worrying will do that to a person. I thought some surfing time on the Internet might help distract me, but first I had to close down the rest of the store.
I moved through the lighted aisles to a bank of electrical controls near the entrance to the community events space. Flicking switches, I shut down all but the recessed security lights in the ceiling.
The entire interior of Buy the Book was now dark, illuminated only by a dull glow that cast deep shadows between the tall bookshelves. Outside the high windows, the night-cloaked streets of Quindicott had gone quiet.
At the end of the block, the hanging stoplight at the crossroad swung in the nighttime breeze, blinking from green to yellow to red, signaling traffic that wasn’t there.
Even the formerly cheerful community events space seemed slightly menacing, its cavernous interior, where a corpse had lain just twenty-four hours ago, blanketed in darkness.
With a sudden shiver, I turned, intending to head back to the main store’s register area when I heard a strange, hollow, banging sound. The noise had come from somewhere inside the darkened community events room.
Trying not to panic, I listened intently. When the sound came again, louder this time, I forced the rational part of my mind to identify the odd yet strangely familiar noise.
“Jack?” I whispered to my delusion. “Is that you? If you’re trying to scare me with some pretense of ghostly manifestation—well, it isn’t very funny.”
No reply. My Jack Shepard alter ego was missing in action.
Typical.
Where’s a psychotic delusion of a ghostly detective when you really need one?
Despite my better judgment, I carefully tiptoed into the darkened community events room in an effort to discover the source of the banging sound.
I tried not to think about my eerie dream the night before, the ghostly presence, the upside-down chairs, the construction workers’ weekly complaints of vanishing and reappearing tools.
Perhaps a squirrel—or even a raccoon—had somehow gotten in through the back door. It had happened before. After all, there were plenty of woods around the town, and the animals were known to root through garbage for food scraps.
That explanation sounded credible enough to make me bold, and within a few moments I had pretty much convinced myself that this was the case, which is why I kept the lights off. Turning them on again might scare the critter.
It was only after I had completely crossed the creepy emptiness of the community events room that I had second thoughts.
