The Silence Of The Library

FORTY

“Bronwyn had just tossed one of those jingle ball toys, and Diesel darted after it.” Helen Louise and I were relaxing on the sofa in her living room with some postprandial brandy on Wednesday evening. Diesel sprawled across our laps. He opened one eye and emitted a lazy chirp. “I’ve warned her about doing that, but for once I was glad she did.”

“Don’t you think Bates would have caught him?” Helen Louise grinned. “I’ve seen the man in shorts and a tank top before, and he’s in mighty good shape.” She stroked the cat’s head. “Not that I want to take any credit away from this clever boy.”

I gazed at her in mock indignation. “You’re going around ogling buff lawmen behind my back? I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.”

Helen Louise laughed. “Darling, if I tried anything with Bates, his boyfriend would scratch my eyes out.”

“Boyfriend?” That was news to me. I took a moment to digest this interesting bit of information.

“You mean Stewart hasn’t told you?” Helen Louise looked thoughtful. “I guess I shouldn’t have said anything. I thought surely you knew.”

I laughed. “Stewart has been pretty cagey about it, although I could tell he was involved with someone. He’s been happier than I’ve ever seen him lately. Well, good for them. I hope things work out.”

“Me, too,” Helen Louise said. “They will have to be discreet, but I’m sure Stewart can be when he needs to.”

We sipped at our brandy for a moment. The quiet of Helen Louise’s house, the one she and two generations of Bradys before her had grown up in, settled around us.

“I sidetracked you.” Helen Louise leaned over the cat in her lap to set her brandy snifter on the coffee table. “Tell me what happened after Bates landed on top of Eugene Marter.”

“They both had the breath knocked out of them, but Eugene got the worst of it. Bates fell right on top of him, and he’s a big guy. The minute Eugene got his breath back, though, he started cursing. Funny how his voice suddenly dropped about an octave.” I recalled that moment at our first meeting when Eugene forgot and let his voice deepen briefly. That was my first clue, though I didn’t realize it until later. “The wig came loose in all the hullabaloo, but he didn’t realize that. He was still trying to make us believe he was his hundred-year-old grandmother.”

“He’s not all that bright, is he?” Helen Louise laughed, and I did, too.

“He has a certain kind of low cunning,” I said after the merriment subsided. “He just can’t seem to think things through clearly and consider the consequences. Otherwise he wouldn’t have done some of the lamebrained things he did. Searching Gordon Betts’s and Della Duffy’s rooms at the hotel was pretty stupid, though of course he tried to lay that off on Eagleton later. I still don’t know what he expected to find.” I paused as another memory surfaced. “He also tried to con me into thinking he was worried Eagleton’s demands would cause his poor granny to have a heart attack and die.”

“One mistake after another, like planting those manuscripts in poor Mr. Eagleton’s hotel room.”

“Exactly. He wanted to confuse things—and he did—but it was a dumb way to do it. It was obvious to Sean and Kanesha that Eagleton wouldn’t have done such an asinine thing.” I drank the rest of my brandy and put the snifter on the end table beside me. “Eagleton was grateful to Sean for his help, but he hasn’t coughed up the fee yet. Sean will probably end up writing it off.”

“That’s too bad,” Helen Louise said. “Speaking of Sean, any movement in the stalemate between him and Q.C.?”

“Not as far as I know.” I shook my head. “Sean inherited every ounce of my stubbornness and more besides. They’ll work it out eventually.”

“I hope so, because he and Alexandra are so good for each other, I think.” Helen Louise sighed.

I had to laugh. “Yes, she’s as stubborn as he is, and maybe they’ll wear each other down a bit and learn how to compromise.”

“Back to Eugene,” Helen Louise said. “We wandered off track again.”

“Kanesha picked up the wig and waved it in front of him, and that shut him up. He was mad, though, and I thought any minute he’d start hopping up and down like a temperamental child.”

“Where was his mother during all this?”

“Sitting in a patrol car out in the parking lot. The phone call was a ruse to separate her from Eugene. She walked out to the front desk, where a deputy waited for her. He hustled her out before she could cause a commotion. Apparently the minute he got her in the car, she started crying. She was terrified of Eugene because she never expected him to kill anyone. At least, that’s what she told Kanesha later.”

“Poor woman. I guess they needed money pretty badly, or surely she wouldn’t have gone along with a crackpot scheme like that.”

“They had Mrs. Cartwright’s social security and some investment income, but Eugene couldn’t hold a job, and Marcella couldn’t, either. They could get by, but just barely.” I explained how the plot of The Mystery at Spellwood Mansion mirrored the current situation, including the bogus Mrs. Eden, who turned out to be a penniless, greedy cousin of the real Mrs. Eden. Then I laughed. “Veronica actually snatched the wig off the impostor’s head to expose her. I thought about doing that to Eugene, but it wasn’t necessary.” Helen Louise laughed, too.

Diesel raised his head and yawned. He stretched and turned on his back, exposing his belly. That was a clear signal that Helen Louise and I should rub it. Of course, we did as we were trained to do. A rumbling purr rewarded our ministrations.

“Thank the Lord they hadn’t murdered poor Mrs. Cartwright after all.” Helen Louise shook her head.

“I don’t think Marcella would have allowed that,” I said. “She truly loves her mother, though she is worn down from having to care for her.” I had to chuckle. “Kanesha said that when the two deputies executed the search warrant and went through the house, Mrs. Cartwright and Yancy Thigpen were in an upstairs bedroom playing poker.”

Helen Louise snorted with laughter. “They didn’t have any idea what was going on?”

“Not a clue,” I said. “Yancy Thigpen was spending time with one of her clients, completely oblivious to the plot Eugene was carrying out. Even when Eugene insisted on parking her car in an old barn behind the house she didn’t think much about it or how odd that was.”

“Almost straight out of The Mystery at Spellwood Mansion.”

“That’s what tipped me off to the truth,” I said. “I was rereading it during all this, and it finally dawned on me what was going on.”

“How is Mrs. Cartwright doing?” Helen Louise asked. She continued to rub Diesel’s belly, and the rumbling increased in volume.

I had to raise my voice slightly. “Physically she’s in pretty good shape for a centenarian. She has trouble walking and standing for long. In a way, she’s pretty sharp mentally, too.” I paused. “Only thing is, she believes she’s Veronica Thane.”

“Seriously?” Helen Louise sounded skeptical.

“Absolutely.” It sounded weird to me, too, but the mind is a strange and wonderful thing. “Evidently she chatters about her adventures in solving mysteries, and Lucy and Artie are as real to her now as they were when she first wrote the books.”

“I guess she’s happy anyway. Who’s going to look after her?”

“For the time being, Yancy Thigpen. Kanesha told me she thought Marcella might get off with probation. She didn’t know Eugene had murdered Carrie Taylor, and given the circumstances with Mrs. Cartwright’s age and so on, Kanesha thinks the judge will be lenient.”

“Eugene, on the other hand . . .” Helen Louise sighed.

I knew exactly what she was thinking. Eugene faced years in prison, if not the death penalty.

“One good thing, though,” I said. “Those manuscripts turned out to be real. Mrs. Cartwright wrote them years ago. Winston Eagleton is working with Yancy Thigpen on a deal to publish them, along with the rest of the series. Gordon Betts and Della Duffy are going to put up the money. I don’t know exactly how that’s all going to work, with Mrs. Cartwright thinking she’s Veronica Thane, but I think her agency will work it out.”

“That would be wonderful. Money for Mrs. Cartwright, and for poor Marcella.”

“Mrs. Cartwright could live for several years more,” I said. “Like I said, she’s supposed to be in pretty good shape physically, for her age. She’s not able to do the event at the library, obviously, so we’ve cancelled that. The exhibit of juvenile mysteries will go on as planned, though.”

“I’m glad it’s all over, and no one else got hurt. I am so sad about Carrie Taylor, though.”

“Me, too.” I sighed heavily. “She had that same picture in her files—the one with Marietta Dubois and Mrs. Cartwright—along with other photos and a few letters signed by Mrs. Cartwright. Eugene was terrified Carrie Taylor would figure it out, and he killed her to get the files. He went in as Eugene and came out as Mrs. Cartwright. Eugene trying to be clever.”

“In the end, though, you were smarter.” Helen Louise leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“I suppose,” I said. “But Veronica Thane helped. If I hadn’t been rereading the book, I might not have cottoned on to the deception.”

Helen Louise covered her mouth as she yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for bed.” She held Diesel as she shifted out from under him, then moved him off my lap onto the sofa beside me.

I stood and drew her to me for a kiss. “Me, too. You go on. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She grinned and blew me a kiss before she left the room.

I looked down at Diesel, stretched lazily out on the sofa. “You have to stay here, boy.”

He warbled once. Then, I would have sworn, he winked at me.