Out of Circulation (CAT IN THE STACKS MYSTERY)

NINETEEN

The obvious answer—Azalea was protecting someone.

Or maybe she saw something and wasn’t certain what to think, how to interpret it.

I decided to take a slightly different tack.

“Could the person who pushed Vera have seen you?”

Azalea shook her head. “Don’t think so. It was dark down where I was, and I scrunched up against that door. Didn’t want nobody to know I be there.”

No hesitation there. Good. “After you heard Vera fall, what did you do? Take me through it again.”

She frowned at me. I thought she was going to protest, but she complied after a brief hesitation. “Like I done said, I went up to her to see if they’s anything I could do, but she was dead.”

“Did you look up at the top of the stairs at all?”

She nodded. I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.

“When did you look? Before you went to check on her?”

“I don’t rightly remember,” Azalea said slowly. She glanced away.

Again it didn’t feel right. I pressed her. “Was the door at the top of the stairs open or closed when you looked?”

“Closed.”

“So whoever it was got out of the stairwell before you looked up?” I felt like I was leading the witness, so to speak, but I had to wring whatever information I could from her.

“Reckon so.” Suddenly she pushed back in her chair and stood. “Ain’t nothing more I can tell you, Mr. Charlie. I need to get back to finishing my dusting.”

“Okay, Azalea. You go on ahead.” There was no point in my insisting that she stay. Frankly I was surprised I’d managed to keep her talking this long.

Diesel butted my leg with his head again. Evidently he had gone too long without attention, and he was letting me know. My mind remained elsewhere as I rubbed his head and down his spine.

Despite what Azalea had told me—that the upper door was closed when she looked—I was convinced she was holding something back. She must have seen something. But what? Or whom?

Then again, maybe I had simply misread her body language. Was I too anxious for a simple solution to this mess?

A simple solution would be that Morty Cassity pushed Vera down the stairs, angry because she refused to divorce him.

I needed a drink. My throat felt dry after my interrogation of Azalea, so I got up and poured myself a glass of water and downed it.

That was better. I leaned against the counter and stared down at Diesel. He sat at my feet and stared up at me as if to ask, “Okay, what now?”

“I’m not sure, boy.”

He meowed and thrust out a paw to touch my leg. I had to smile. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to convey, but the fact that he always seemed to respond when I talked to him made me feel like we were having a conversation.

My cell phone rang, and I peered at the number that came up on the screen. I frowned. Why was Melba Gilley calling me?

I answered the call and before I could do more than utter hello, Melba was off and running.

“Charlie, the weirdest thing. One of the work-study students just walked over from the main building with a letter for you. Apparently it got delivered by mistake over there and was sitting on somebody’s desk since Monday. Anyway, you’ll never guess who it’s from.”

I suppressed a sigh of irritation. I loved Melba dearly, but she could be exasperating—especially when she thought there was gossip involved. “No, you’re right, I’ll never guess. So who’s the letter from?”

“Vera Cassity.”

I nearly dropped the phone.

“Charlie, you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Shaken, but here. Why would Vera write to me?

“Don’t you think you ought to come and see what’s in the letter? Or I could bring it to you in a little bit, when I go out to lunch.”

“I’ll come get it,” I said. “I’m feeling a bit better now, and the walk will do me and Diesel good. We’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.” I ended the call.

A letter from Vera—that was distinctly creepy. Obviously she had written and posted it late last week, probably after she came to see me at the archives. It might not be anything more than another attempt to coerce me into letting her nose around in the Ducote papers.

Too late for that, I thought grimly.

“Come on, boy, we’re going back to work.” Diesel waited for me by the door as I scribbled a quick note for Azalea and left it on the table. I wanted to let her know that I would be back for lunch later on. If I didn’t turn up as usual, I would mess up her routine, and I had upset her enough already today.

When Diesel and I walked into the library director’s suite, Melba’s face lit up with excitement. She bobbed up out of her chair and came to greet us. She and Diesel were great pals, and she squatted to put herself on face level with him. They rubbed noses, and she scratched his head and talked nonsense to him while I stood patiently by.

At last Melba stood, brushed some hair from her bright turquoise pants, and said, “Charlie, I know you’re tired, but you have to tell me all about what happened last night.” She pointed to a chair by her desk. “Now, sit and spill.”

I’d known Melba since elementary school, when she was a gap-toothed, pigtailed nuisance who could talk the hind legs off a mule. Forty-odd years later she was an attractive, stylish woman, but her mouth hadn’t slowed down. I had to be careful what I told her, because it would be all over town ten minutes after I left her.

I started out with a carefully edited account of the gala, but Melba interrupted with questions.

“How was Vera dressed? The article in the paper didn’t say anything about it, and they haven’t run any photos from the gala yet.”

“She came as Scarlett O’Hara, and her husband was Rhett Butler.”

Melba snorted with laughter. “You have got to be kidding me. Vera Cassity as Scarlett O’Hara? That must have been a sight.”

I winced, thinking of Vera’s corpse on the stairwell, with that hoop skirt billowing up, stuck in place. I wasn’t going to share that detail with Melba, however.

“Sorry.” Melba looked almost contrite. “I know it’s terrible of me to make fun of her like that, but a woman her age dressing like that. She should have gone as Scarlett’s grandmother, Lord have mercy. She was seventy-five at least.”

That surprised me. “I thought she was about sixty. She sure didn’t look seventy-five.”

“Well, she was.” Melba’s tone brooked no argument. She was invariably right about these things. “Don’t forget, honey, she had the money for plastic surgery. She’d had everything that sagged tucked up so many times it’s a wonder her toes weren’t on top of her knees.”

“Then her husband must have had surgery, too, because he doesn’t look much more than sixty himself.”

“That’s because he’s only about ten years older than you and me, honey.” Melba shook her head at my obvious denseness. “Vera was at least a dozen years older than Morty. I thought you knew that.”

“I had no idea,” I said. “Why did he marry a woman that much older?”

“Money.”

“I thought Vera came from a poor family.” This wasn’t adding up.

“She did,” Melba said. “Dirt-poor. But Vera’s mama inherited some money from some old aunt in Georgia, or maybe it was Florida, around the time Vera was almost thirty. Then her mama died and left it all to Vera. Morty came calling soon after, and he used Vera’s money to get started in business.”

“He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at that point.”

“He wasn’t,” Melba said. “But they got married, and within ten years Morty had three car dealerships. He’s got seven now, I think. Loaded, and it all started with Vera’s mama’s money.”

Diesel, tired of being ignored, crawled into Melba’s lap, and she laughed. “Sweetie, I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you.” She loved on him as she continued, “I got you sidetracked, Charlie. Go on, tell me the rest of it.”

I spent another fifteen minutes talking, until I got to the point where I found Azalea and Vera’s body in the stairwell.

“That’s the end of it,” I said, my throat dry. “After that we all had to wait to talk to the sheriff, and then we were able to get home.”

Melba’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re leaving out a lot. You can’t fool me.”

“I’ve told you all I can,” I said. “I’ll have to leave it at that, but I promise to tell you, as soon as I am able, anything else that I might have left out. Deal?”

Melba sighed and nodded. “You’re going to be nosing around again, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer as she reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s your letter.”

The envelope was made of thick, quality paper, and Vera’s name and address were embossed in silver on it. My name and address were handwritten in block capitals.

I debated whether to open it in front of Melba, but I could always claim the contents were private. She might badger me, but I could handle that. Curiosity was eating at me, and I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Can I borrow your letter opener?”

Melba handed it across to me, and I slit the envelope. There was a single sheet inside, and I pulled it out.

I unfolded it to reveal the scanned image of a photograph. An old photograph, judging by the clothing of the woman in the picture. The words “Essie Mae Hobson” were printed underneath the photo. I had no idea who she was.

I showed it to Melba, and her eyes widened as she spoke. “Why would Vera send you a picture of her mother?”