Murder Between the Covers

section. No one knew how he was able to move about stores without being noticed.

Mr. Goggles was an evil creature. If you opened up the dictionary and looked under “pervert,” you would see him.

Mr. Goggles wore swim goggles. If that wasn’t strange enough, he was a small, misshapen man with mismatched clothes that looked like they’d been stolen from the Goodwill bin: an orange dress shirt and plaid walking shorts.

In some countries, the people would stone Mr. Goggles.

In South Florida, he’d been in and out of jail and various institutions. But he always returned to haunting bookstores and libraries.

Even the most inexperienced bookseller knew there was something wrong with Mr. Goggles. Young Denny recognized the goblin man as a destroyer of innocence. He came running up to Helen and said, “There’s this weird guy playing with himself in the Spider-man section. He’s one row from the kids’ books.”

“Call nine-one-one,” Helen told Brad. “I’ll grab Mr. Goggles. Denny, guard the Children’s section and make sure he doesn’t run back there.”

Helen quickly collared Mr. Goggles. The little man struggled, but he was easy to subdue. Helen was six inches taller and forty pounds heavier. She bent his arm behind his back, and shuddered when his hand touched hers. She knew where it had been.

Mr. Goggles smelled like fried eggs and unwashed hair.

Helen wanted to let go of him and take a shower. In Lysol.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it,” he whined. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“Shut up or I’ll break your neck and do the world a favor.”

Helen was grateful that the Spider-man section was in a secluded book nook. Mr. Goggles was too scared of Helen to make any noise, and he’d stopped struggling. The police were on the way. She heard the sirens and started to relax.

They would haul him away soon.

That’s when a little boy said loudly, “Mommy, that man’s wee-wee is showing.”

It was the child who’d torn up the Children’s section, along with his book-ripping sister. Helen would never forget those little monsters, or their heavily pregnant mother.

She’d sat there and read Oprah best-sellers while her offspring destroyed the place.

Mom had her nose buried in another Oprah pick. But her son’s words must have set off some special mommy alert.

She put her trade paperback facedown on the table, cracking its spine.

“Justin,” his mother commanded, “go read about Clifford, the big red dog, with your sister.”

She stood up. My Lord, that woman is pregnant, Helen thought. She must be due any day. She looked like a fertility goddess in a white, high-waisted dress, her long brown hair trailing down her back.

Mr. Goggles saw the woman rise to her full height and girth and backed into Helen for protection. Helen nearly threw up as she got a wave of fried egg and oily hair. The pregnant woman lumbered over to the law books and picked up a Black’s Law Dictionary. It was the deluxe leather-bound edition, more than seventeen hundred pages.

The thing was the size of a lawyer’s briefcase and a lot heavier.

“Stand back,” she ordered Helen.

“No!” Helen said. But she saw the fire in the outraged mother’s eyes. She was not going to get squashed saving Mr. Goggles. She moved aside, and the woman walloped him on the head.

“Ma’am, it’s OK, the police are on their way,” Helen said. But Justin’s mom pounded Mr. Goggles like a pile driver. Helen hoped the police took their time. The pervert deserved it.

Another mother in a denim jumper grabbed Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II and slammed it into Mr. Goggles’ private parts. He shrieked in agony.

“Shut up, you nasty man. You’ll scare my child,” the woman said, and got him in the groin again. This time, he moaned softly and fell to the floor.

All around Helen, mothers were arming themselves with monster tomes. Helen abandoned Mr. Goggles to his fate.

By the time the cops arrived, there was a full-scale parental riot. Mothers were beating Mr. Goggles with bigger and bigger books. He was clutching his groin. It would be a long time before he used that area for recreation.

As the cops dragged Mr. Goggles away, a woman screamed, “I hope you throw the book at him.”

That’s when Gayle returned from the optometrist. “I’m gone fifteen minutes and there’s a riot. What the hell happened?”

“Mr. Goggles,” Helen said. “He got what he deserved.”

Gayle picked up the battered Black’s Law. The title page was ripped and smeared with blood. Other pages were torn.

“Justice has a high price,” she said. “This book goes for ninety-six bucks. I can’t sell it or return it in this condition.”

Gayle and Helen squatted on the floor, gathering up far-flung books and assessing the damage. Black’s Law was beyond repair. Jane’s Fighting Ships might sell if they slipped off the torn dustcover. Helen spotted a Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged under a display table.

It weighed twelve and a half pounds, but it had been tossed aside like a paperback. If Mr. Goggles got hit with that baby, he would hurt for a while.

She crawled under the table to the abandoned dictionary and saw that it was resting near two paint- spattered work boots. She followed them up to a pair of superbly tanned legs, blond hairs glistening in the afternoon sun. She knew those legs and the rest of that muscular body. It was her allaround handyman, Gabe, looking cool, calm, and oh-so-handsome in this chaos. He helped her out from under the table and embraced her.

“Gabe!” Helen said.

“Daddy,” said little Justin, grabbing Gabriel’s leg.

“Daddy, when are you coming home?”

Isn’t that cute, Helen thought. He thinks Gabriel is his father.

“Daddy!” shrieked Justin’s sister. Wasn’t her name Gabrielle? Helen was getting a bad feeling.

The pregnant woman, now armed with a sturdy Roget’s Thesaurus, returned to the section, fertile and ferocious, “Yes, Daddy, when are you coming home? You haven’t given me a dime of child support in six months. In case you didn’t notice, your third child is on the way.”

“You’re married?” blurted Helen.

“It’s just a technicality,” Gabe said.

“Technicality, my ass,” said the pregnant woman, and whacked him with the Roget’s. “You walked out, but we’re still married. And your technicality is due in two weeks.”

“You told me you didn’t want children,” Helen said.

“I didn’t,” Gabe said. “They just happened.”

“You rat,” Helen said, but two words were not adequate.

She picked up the Webster’s unabridged dictionary. Four hundred fifty thousand words should do it, she thought, and took aim at his— “Helen! ” Gayle said. Helen stopped in midswing. “Put that book down. I’ll not have you ruining good books on a worthless man. You, too, ma’am. Drop that Roget’s. Violence is bad for your unborn child.”

The pregnant woman looked down at her bulging belly and slowly put the book down.

Helen had never seen Gayle look so fierce. With her golden hair and black clothes, she looked like a commando in a James Bond movie.

“Do you want me to detain this deadbeat?” she said to the pregnant woman.

“No. I don’t need his money. Besides, he won’t go far.

He’s got his little seduction routine. Takes his gullible fools to a free Shakespeare play, a cheap meal at the