The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library

Clobber him!

I swung around with my fist and pounded the intruder right in the nose. The blow hurt me, so I didn’t need to hear the startled howl to know it hurt the stranger.

Yelling a string of obscenities, the man stumbled backward and away from me.

Scram out, Penelope! Run!

I bolted out of the events room and through the store. I was nearly halfway to the front door before I heard his heavy footsteps coming up behind me. To slow him down, I pushed the four-foot corrugate display of P. D. James’s latest title into the man’s path. The display was packed with frontlist hardcovers. He crashed right into it. Books flew everywhere.

Nice move, sister!

“Thank god it wasn’t her paperback edition!”

I kept on running until I slammed into the front door with enough force to ring the chime. I twisted the bolt, flung the door open, and hit the sidewalk yelling my head off for help!

I heard the squeal of tires on pavement, the sound of doors opening. Someone grabbed me, and I found myself looking into the startled face of Officer Eddie Franzetti.

I sagged with relief.

I’d known Eddie since I was a little girl. He’d been a close friend of my late brother’s back in high school, before Pete had lost his life drag racing to impress a local beauty queen.

“Penelope! Calm down.” He peeled off his sunglasses, pushed back his uniform hat. “What happened?”

“A burglar! In the store…”

“Anyone else in there?”

“No…just the intruder. Sadie’s out.”

Eddie glanced at his partner and jerked his head in the direction of Buy the Book. Bill “Bull” McCoy drew his weapon and cautiously peered through the front door.

“I need to back up my partner,” Eddie gently explained. “Can you stay here?” I hugged myself and nodded.

Eddie joined his partner, and I watched them both enter the store. Feeling as if curious stares were on my back, I turned to find that a crowd had congregated around the police cruiser. Eddie appeared in the store’s doorway a moment later.

“Pen,” he called.

Apparently, the store was empty. No sign of the intruder.

Still nervous, I walked back in and gave Eddie and his partner the rundown on what had happened. They listened, Eddie taking notes. I showed them where I left my lunch, the knocked-over display, the scattered hardcovers. I showed them the marks on my arms, fast darkening into bruises, and told them what the man had been after. They asked to see the old books, and we double-checked the Phelps editions. None were missing.

“He must have broken in through the back door,” I told them. “The one leading into the storeroom.”

“We checked that out already,” said Bill McCoy. “And there’s a problem with that theory.”

Eddie and his partner took me back to the storeroom and showed me the door. There were no signs of forced entry. Stranger still, the back door was locked.

“Could he have picked the lock?” I asked.

Eddie shrugged. “Anything’s possible. But why lock it again when you leave?”

“You claim you closed for lunch,” Officer McCoy said in a barely civil tone. “Did you set the burglar alarm?”

“No,” I replied sheepishly.

McCoy scowled and glanced at his partner. Eddie shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll put in a report,” he said. “But with nothing stolen, we can only file trespassing and assault charges—and that’s if we catch this guy.”

I thanked the men for their trouble and promised to set the alarm next time—which I did, as soon as they both left. I then spent the rest of my lunch hour in a daze. When Sadie returned to the store, she found the BACK IN ONE HOUR sign still hanging on the door, and me on the floor, picking up the books I’d scattered in my wild flight. I told her what had happened, from the beginning, leaving out the ghost’s part in coaching my escape.

The fact that the back door was locked, and not forced open, puzzled us both.

I offered another theory. “Is it possible that an early customer came in and hid back there, lying in wait until I was alone?”

Sadie shook her head. “The only customer I had was Mr. Van Riij, and he came and went before business hours. Then you returned from the school and I headed off to church.”

“And I saw only two shoppers—both of them were women.”

“The only way through that storeroom door is with a key.” I looked down and rattled the keys dangling from my belt. “Mine is right here.”

“I have my key, too,” said Sadie. “And I’m sure the store key is behind the counter.”

But when we looked for that spare key ring, which we kept on a hook behind the register, it was missing. There were four keys on that ring—one each for the front door, the back door, the storage room entrance, and the cash register.

Sadie picked up the phone. “I’m calling the locksmith to have the door locks changed. After that—” She checked her watch. “I’ll get a head start on setting up the events room for the Quibblers meeting tonight.”

While Sadie made the call, it occurred to me that two other people had access to those keys on a regular basis—Mina Griffith and Garfield Platt.

Of course, I knew my attacker wasn’t Mina for obvious reasons and also because she only worked weekends. She didn’t even know about the Phelps volumes of Poe yet.

As for Garfield, he stood at about my height, but the intruder was a head taller than I. And another thing: The intruder didn’t know how to locate the books he presumably wanted to steal. I’d told him the books were by the register, but he’d still needed me to point out where the register was. Both of those facts let Garfield off the hook.

I wouldn’t be so sure, Jack declared. Circumstances dictate he had access to those keys. So turn your suspect in and let the cops sort it out. If Garfield’s innocent, no harm done. The coppers will cut him loose eventually.

“No, Jack, you’re wrong. There would be harm done, so I can’t do that.”

Why the hell not?

“Because we’re not in a big city, where there are so many people that nobody pays attention to their neighbor’s business. Small-town people have less people to talk about. So, of course, they talk about them more.”

I’m on your frequency, honey, but I’m getting nothing but static.

“Look,” I said, “when Sadie and I hired Garfield, he told us straight out about his brother being an ex-con. Do you know why?”

Because he’s honest to a fault?

“No. Because Quindicott runs on gossip. Neither Sadie nor I personally know Garfield’s family, but if we’d started asking around, we’d have heard the gossip about his brother. Garfield knew that. So he saved us the trouble.”

Throw me a bone, baby, I’m still trying to glom your point.

“If I were to claim Garfield had something to do with a break-in and an assault on me, and he got questioned by the police, his reputation would get ruined in this town, just like his brother’s. Up to now, Garfield’s been a solid, reliable employee, and he obviously wasn’t the man who grabbed me. I’m not going to ruin his reputation and lose his trust just because I’m desperate for a lead.”

Hasn’t it occurred to you that Garfield’s ex-con brother might be part of the picture here? He could have been the one who broke into the place.

“But…that would mean Garfield would have to be involved, too, wouldn’t it?”

Bingo, baby.

“Okay, all right. I’ll sit Garfield down when he comes to work tomorrow and ask him some hard questions. Between you and me, we should be able to figure out whether he’s on the up-and-up or pegging me for a