"What's all the ruckus, Alan?" the man asked.
"Morning, Mr. Lemoine," the deputy replied. He glanced back into the diner, and shook his head in confusion. "Just vandals, looks like. Probably kids. It's a crazy thing. Seems like sometime after midnight, somebody broke in and just tore the place apart. Ripped all the books down off the shelves but didn't steal anything, as far as we've been able to tell so far."
"Lemoine?" Jack whispered to Molly, frowning. "Why is that name familiar?"
Molly smiled. "Tina at the hotel? He must be her father."
Jack sensed a looming presence behind him and turned slightly to see a big, barrel-chested man leaning toward him.
"You got it in one, kids," the man said. "Are you nosy, or just observant?"
Though he smiled, a kind of dark energy seemed to flow off the man. He made Jack very nervous. But when he thrust out a meaty hand to be shaken, Jack took it quick enough.
"Bernard Mackeson," the man said. "I own the department store just down the street."
Jack and Molly introduced themselves. Mackeson eyed them both closely, even suspiciously, and Jack had to wonder if it was just the way Buckton residents treated anyone who wasn't a local, or if there was more to it than that.
Mackeson smiled, then moved on as though the encounter had never happened. He stood at the inner edge of the circle of spectators, eavesdropping - as they all were - on the conversation between Deputy Vance and Mr. Lemoine. Jack understood now why Vance treated the man with such respect. The deputy was in love with the guy's daughter; he had to be on his best behavior.
Lemoine scratched the back of his head and sighed. "A shame, isn't it? All that nastiness we see on television has finally started to make Buckton just as sick as the rest of the world. I never thought I'd see the day, Alan. Never thought I'd see the day."
Alan muttered something to the man, gave him a pat on the back, and then Lemoine strolled off down the sidewalk in the general direction of Mackeson's store.
For his part, the burly Mackeson remained in the crowd, paying no more attention to the man who had departed.
Someone in the crowd echoed what the deputy had been saying, repeating it for another who had just arrived. "Teenagers or something," the bystander said.
"Though why they'd want to break in and throw all those books around and not even rob the place . . . I suppose it's probably drugs, isn't it?"
Jack blinked.
Books.
Suddenly he felt rather stupid. With a glance to make sure no one was paying particular attention to them, he leaned in toward Molly.
"I'm thinking this wasn't vandals," he whispered. "This whole thing is supposed to be about a missing book, right? I mean, that's why these three people were killed."
Molly nodded. "So this mess probably means someone thinks it's been hidden. And where else would you hide a book than with a bunch of other books?"
The crowd of spectators had thinned somewhat as people began to realize that no one had been killed or injured and nothing was stolen. They drifted back to their homes and jobs. As Molly spoke to him, Jack glanced up at Deputy Vance just as the deputy noticed the two of them.
Vance frowned.
After a moment he strode over to them. "Morning, you two. Tina tells me you were out hiking most of yesterday. Did you conquer the mountain or did it conquer you?"
Jack chuckled politely. "The battle still rages," he replied.
"What a mess in there, huh?" Molly said, referring to the diner.
Vance glanced over his shoulder, then back at them. He hesitated as if taking the time to talk to outsiders was not high on his list of priorities at the moment.
Then he sighed.
"It's very sad. They were arranged just so and it's going to take a while to put all the books back in order. I told Trish, the woman who owns the place, that Tina and I would come over later and help out."
Molly warmed to him then. She patted his arm lightly. "That's sweet of you. We are pretty wiped out from yesterday and this morning, but if you think she could use some extra hands . . ."
Alan seemed surprised. His gaze went from Molly to Jack, and back to Molly again. "It's kind of you to offer. I'll mention it to Trish, see what she says." He paused, took a deep breath, and then gestured toward the store. "Nice talking to you, but I guess I'd better check in with the sheriff again. The way things have been going lately, people want to see us doing our jobs."
"It's got to be pretty unsettling, having all this stuff happen at once," Jack reasoned.
"No kidding," Molly agreed. "I can't imagine living here, having no crime, practically ever, and then having three murders in a month and now this break-in, too.
They must be freaking out."
Vance was retreating toward the diner, but he stopped and looked at Molly oddly. "Two murders. Don't make it any worse than it is," he told her.
Jack stiffened. They don't know about the third murder yet. He studied the deputy's face, but Vance seemed content to believe Molly had just misspoken.
"Sorry," Molly replied quickly. "I know it's a big deal here, of course, but in the city, two, three . . . that's sort of every night."
Vance rolled his eyes heavenward. "Thank God I never have to live in the city." Then he went into the diner.
On the way back to the Jeep, Jack glanced at Molly. "That was not good."
"It'll be all right," she consoled him. "I just got the number wrong. What, are they going to think we did it?"
When Alan walked back into the Paperback Diner, Sheriff Tackett
