Ronald was soon back. He said good night and left. Watson asked Mary-Sue to join him in Bertie’s office.
“While we’re waiting our turn to talk to Detective Watson,” I said to Louise Jane, “we can finish the cleaning up.”
“You go ahead,” she said.
Bertie started to stand. “I’ll give you a hand, Lucy.”
“I meant we as in Louise Jane and me. Not you. This is your party.”
“I need to be doing something productive.”
“So do I,” Ruth said. “Come on, everyone. Many hands make light work.”
And they did. Before long we had the library spic and span and ready to open tomorrow.
If we did open tomorrow.
“Do you think Watson’s going to order us to keep the library closed until further notice?” I asked Bertie as I rinsed out the coffee maker.
“I see no reason. The death happened outside.”
“They were stringing police tape around the boardwalk when we left.”
“That should be enough then. I hope.”
Watson finished questioning Mary-Sue, Ruth, Lucinda, and Sheila, and called for a police car to take them back to their homes or the hotel.
“Can I ride in the back?” Ruth said as they prepared to leave. “I’ve always wanted to ride in the back of a cruiser.”
“See you tomorrow, Bertie,” Mary-Sue called. “Are you coming to the Wright Brothers with us?”
“I was planning to, but I’ll have to see what happens here.”
“I hope they get the boardwalk open before I have to leave,” Ruth said. “I asked Detective Watson about that, but he wouldn’t say.”
“Is Detective Watson married?” Lucinda asked me.
“’Fraid so,” I said. “I know his wife well. They’re very happy together.”
“Too bad,” she said.
I glanced across the room to where Watson was talking to Officer Rankin. The tips of his ears might have turned pink.
“We can talk in here,” he said when the women had left. “Tell me what happened tonight, after you started on this walk.”
“First,” I said, “there’s something you should know. Mary-Sue wasn’t at all blasé about seeing Helena. She was, in fact, extremely upset. I might even say horrified. At first she lied to me, told me she didn’t know her. Then, obviously, it came out that she did, and not at all fondly.”
“Lucy’s right,” Bertie said. “She cornered me and demanded to know why Helena was here. I explained my reasoning, and she said I should have sent out a full guest list. If she’d known she’d bump into Helena, she wouldn’t have come. She was furious. I apologized and said if she wanted to leave early, I’d call her a cab. She said she was here now and wouldn’t be driven away as though she were the one who’d done something wrong.”
“Which implies,” Watson said, “that she believes Helena Sanchez did something wrong. I thought she was hiding something. I’ll have another chat with her tomorrow. Thank you. You don’t know what might have caused this animosity between them?”
“No,” Bertie said.
“I can take a guess,” I said. “I’ve heard that Helena wasn’t very popular with the Friends of the Library when she was director here. Aunt Ellen was on the verge of quitting when Helena retired. Mary-Sue worked under her and then left the profession all together.”
“I’ll ask around,” Bertie said.
“I’ll get the full story from Aunt Ellen,” I said.
“The ever-reliable Nags Head grapevine,” Watson said with a chuckle.
“And the even better librarian grapevine,” Bertie said.
“I can’t help you there, Detective,” Louise Jane said. “Activities a mere twenty years ago are not something I concern myself with.”
Watson then asked us to take him step by step through what happened on the boardwalk. I struggled to remember, but I had to admit I couldn’t account for the whereabouts of anyone all the time. Bertie and Louise Jane said the same.
“Lucinda turned back,” Bertie said, “but no one went with her. She would have been alone for several minutes until we came back here after finding Helena. She was in the library when we came in.”
“It was very dark,” I said. “And many of us were wearing black clothes, so we were hard to see.” I indicated Louise Jane and myself. “We, and Ronald, were the waitstaff for tonight and we tried to dress accordingly.” Bertie’s attire wasn’t much lighter. She wore a calf-length navy-blue dress with long sleeves. “Points of light were moving through the marsh, but they weren’t bright enough to show who was carrying them, except for Ronald, who had the big Maglite. And the lights were out entirely for several minutes.”
“You turned your flashlights off? Why?”
I glanced at Louise Jane. “Uh …”
“I was creating a mood, Detective,” she said, “to illustrate what it must have been like for our ancestors when they first arrived on these shores. Although that’s not entirely possible, is it? Not with airplanes flying overhead, and the lights from town bouncing off the clouds, and—”
“You’re saying when the lights were out, you couldn’t see anyone at all?”
“Not even Louise Jane,” I said, “who was talking. Hey, I’ve just cleared you of suspicion, Louise Jane. Your voice stayed in one place.”
“I’m quite sure I was never under suspicion, Lucy.”
“No one,” Watson said, “who was here tonight is entirely above suspicion.”
Louise Jane harrumphed.
“Other than Mary-Sue, who reacted badly to seeing Helena, did you notice anything else about her relations with the guests?”
Bertie, Louise Jane, and I exchanged glances. “Nothing stands out,” Bertie said.
“She could be extremely blunt,” I said. “She told Ruth she’d put on weight. Ruth didn’t like that, but she pretended to laugh it off.”
“If every woman killed a person who commented on her weight,” Bertie said, “there wouldn’t be many people left. In jail or out of it.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” scrawny Louise Jane said smugly.
“I have to say,” I continued, “Helena Sanchez didn’t exactly try to be friendly. She was blunt, as Bertie said, and rude, and didn’t much care who she offended.” I remembered her shoving people out of her way to get to the bar.
“Thank you for this,” Watson
