There were at least twenty people in To Be Read, including Jo, Spence, me, Jo’s employees, and the authors participating in the book signing. Three deputies were conducting witness interviews in separate parts of the store. A fourth was watching over us. Was he there to comfort us during this time of distress, or to prevent us from coordinating our stories? The New Yorker in me dismissed the idea of Southern hospitality and went with option two.
Since Jo, Spence, and I had found Fiona, the deputies interviewed us first. Jo led a tall, baby-faced lawman to her office. A petite female deputy escorted Spence to a sitting area near the magazines.
An older deputy brought me back to one of the reading spaces in the children’s book section. He was going to conduct the homicide interview in the company of The Cat in the Hat, Curious George, and Madeleine. My stomach took a tumble. Would I ever reminisce over those stories again without the memory of Fiona’s murder?
The deputy waited for me to sink into the overstuffed mint green armchair before plunging into the orange one beside me. He cleared his throat. “I’m Deputy Jed Whatley, ma’am.”
“Marvella Harris.” I gripped my clammy hands together on my lap and shifted my shoulders to release some tension.
He looked at me askance. “How’d you spell that?”
As I spelled my name, I absently took in his uniform: short-sleeved white shirt and olive-green pants. He hadn’t removed his green campaign hat.
Jed lifted cool blue eyes and caught my gaze. “And you’re one of the people who discovered Ms. Lyle-Hayes’s body in the storage room. Is that right, ma’am?”
Peach Coast residents spoke so slowly compared to New Yorkers. I could’ve made a pot of coffee and two slices of toast—buttered—before Jed finished asking his question.
“Yes.” I kept my answer short to compensate for lost time.
He scanned his surroundings, taking in the section’s bright yellow walls and kid-sized bookcases as though seeing them for the first time. “I didn’t know they were having a signing here today.”
That was disappointing, considering all the work Jo had put into promoting the event, including the fliers and posters in the library. His admission silenced the screams in my head once and for all.
I flexed my shoulders again. “I’d never met Fiona, but I understand she was excited about the signing.” I rubbed my eyes to erase the nightmare-inducing image of the deceased woman. Her wounds. Her sightless sea-green eyes. Her blood.
Jed recorded my remark in his notepad, then followed with seemingly routine questions about the events proceeding our discovering Fiona’s body. Where had I been? Who had I been with? Had I noticed anything out of the ordinary? Finally, he lowered his pen and paper.
He sighed as he stared across the store. “I wonder why Ms. Gomez would let Ms. Lyle-Hayes back there in the storage room by herself? Are non-employees allowed to go poking around in the storage area? I’d think only employees could do something like that. Wouldn’t you?”
I shrugged. “You should ask Jo.”
Jed’s attention meandered back to me. His eyes narrowed as though he didn’t like my response. “Why do you suppose Ms. Gomez let her back there?”
Knowing Jo and her empathetic nature, the answer was obvious to me. “I’m sure Jo understood that Fiona would be nervous about her first-ever book signing. She probably gave Fiona time alone to prepare so she’d feel more confident when the event started.”
Jed wrote that down. “Did you see anyone near the room, either walking away from it or loitering in the area, before you went in, ma’am?”
“No.”
He nodded as he made another note. “Did you observe any of the customers acting strangely? Did anyone ask after Ms. Lyle-Hayes?”
“Her friends and family. And I didn’t notice anyone acting strangely.” Then a hint of a memory asserted itself, seeming to contradict my statement. “Although Nolan Duggan, Willy Pelt, Betty Rodgers-Hayes, and her son, Bobby, all kept checking the time.”
Fiona’s business partner, Nolan, and her friend, Willy, had frequently consulted their wristwatches while we’d waited for Fiona. I’d noticed Nolan’s silver-and-gold Gucci watch and Willy’s stainless steel Movado. They were attractive—and expensive—accessories. Betty also had repeatedly checked her peach Timex, and Bobby had looked at his black cell phone more than once during the brief period I’d been with them.
At first, their obsession with the time hadn’t registered with me. Maybe they all shared the same nervous tic. I’d been distracted by the idea of asking Nolan and Willy, in particular, to become library patrons. But in retrospect, their behavior made me curious. It was as though they’d all been anxious to leave To Be Read, when they’d literally just arrived. If they hadn’t wanted to be there, why had they come?
Jed didn’t write down my tip about their frequent time checks, though. Perhaps he didn’t find it as curious as I did. With nothing more concrete to contribute to the investigation, I felt helpless. Whether Fiona was well-liked or not—and I was beginning to think she wasn’t; call it a hunch—she deserved justice.
“Where was Ms. Gomez before Ms. Lyle-Hayes’s body was found?”
The question stirred all of my protective instincts toward my friend. Was Jed focusing on Jo? She had nothing to do with this. My voice was firm. “Jo was in the front of the store. She was either with me or within my line of sight the entire time.”
“Are you sure about that, ma’am?” Jed rubbed his upper lip.
“Positive. Spence can confirm it too.” I returned Jed’s steady stare through several beats of silence.
The deputy made another entry in his notepad. “Those are all the questions I have for you. For now. I may have a few follow-up questions later. Thank you for your time, Ms. Harris.”
I wrote my home phone number on my business card and handed the card to Jed.
The deputy studied it. “You work over at the library?”
“Yes, I’m the director of community engagement.”
He grunted. “I haven’t been to the library in years.”
Why
