Bound for Murder, page 16
Chapter Seventeen
The weather stubbornly refused to cooperate when I closed up the library on Friday afternoon.
I’d walked to work, trusting the news report that had claimed a thunderstorm wouldn’t roll in until after dark. But at five o’clock, as I locked the front doors behind the last patron, the bottom fell out. Sheets of rain created a wall of water between the covered entry and the stone steps that led down to the concrete walk.
I phoned Aunt Lydia and told her I was going to wait out the worst of the storm before heading home. “I have a little office work I need to catch up on anyway,” I said, which was unfortunately true.
“We can come and get you.”
“No, it’s fine. You and Hugh have tickets to that play at Clarion, and I don’t want you to miss your dinner reservation beforehand. I don’t want to interfere with your plans.” I glanced out one of the library’s tall windows, trying to spy a break in the clouds, but all I could see was rain pelting the ground. “If this keeps up too long, I’ll call Richard. He said he’d be home by six, so I can just have him swing by and pick me up on his way home from the university.”
Aunt Lydia reluctantly agreed to this plan. I slid my phone into the pocket of my long gray sweater and walked back to the workroom.
Staring at the pile of printed documents stacked beside my back-office computer, I exhaled a loud sigh. Compiling statistics wasn’t my favorite task, but one I needed to complete before my next presentation to the Taylorsford town council. As I compared this month’s circulation statistics with previous months, I was happy to see a significant uptick in our numbers. That would placate the council, who were always worried that “all books being digital” meant that the library was “redundant.”
A foolish worry anyway, I thought with a wry smile. As I’d told them many times, not everything was available digitally, even today. There were tons of older print materials that could be converted to electronic formats only after an exorbitant expenditure of time and money. Anyway, as I constantly reminded the council, the public library was not simply a repository for books and other materials. It also offered Internet access to those who couldn’t afford a computer, furnished research databases that no one could pay for on their own, and provided literacy training, book clubs, children’s activities, and homework assistance, among many other community services.
As I finished up my report, a bang startled me, and I spun my rolling chair around to face the open workroom door. That was odd. It had almost sounded like heavy books tumbling off a shelf.
I stood, reaching into my pocket to curl my fingers around my cell phone. Crossing the workroom to reach the area behind the circulation desk, I slid my fingers along the plaster wall until I reached the main switch and flicked on the lights.
Nothing happened. I toggled the switch off and on a couple of times before giving up and reaching under the circulation desk for the flashlight we kept for emergencies. I wasn’t overly worried about the failure. It wasn’t uncommon to lose power every now and then. The original portion of the building dated from 1919 and the electricity could be problematic, especially in bad weather. We’d upgraded some of the wiring to accommodate computers and other equipment, but we couldn’t afford to fix everything. As long as it worked, it didn’t get touched.
But it wasn’t working now. I gripped the flashlight with one hand, keeping the other in my pocket to retain my grip on my phone. If I saw anything that looked suspicious—like arcing or sparking in any of the lights or outlets—I wanted to be ready to call 911 immediately.
A clunk of wood against wood made me pause in one of the nonfiction aisles and lower my flashlight. It sounded like one of our heavy wooden reading room chairs had knocked against the edge of a table. I stared at the circle of light illuminating a section of the carpet for a second, my thoughts racing, before I flicked off the flashlight.
The lights were apparently the least of my problems. Someone was in the building—that was the only explanation for such a noise. And I didn’t want my flashlight to lead whoever it was directly to me.
I tiptoed backward before slipping around the endcap to enter another row of shelving. Pulling the phone from my pocket, I pressed the side button to bring up the screen.
But even that light was a mistake. A book, thrown from the end of the aisle, knocked my cell to the floor.
Cradling the spot where one edge of the book had slammed into my wrist, I dropped down in an attempt to reach my phone before the invader could reach me. As I stood, pulling myself up by grabbing one of the strong metal supports that framed the shelving units, I heard the thunder of footsteps heading toward the back door of the library.
The back door slammed. I turned on my flashlight and crept over to the reading room area, where I sank into a chair. Reconsidering the need to alert all emergency services, I pressed the number I’d programmed to call Brad Tucker instead.
Brad promised to arrive, with backup, in less than ten minutes.
As I waited, I shone the flashlight in an arc over the area, noticing a chair that had been knocked over by the intruder. Crossing over to that area, I stopped in my tracks and stared at the top of the adjacent table.
MIND YUR OWN BIZ was carved into the wood, obviously with a penknife or some other sharp implement. The old table was marred with ink stains and other, older graffiti, but the new cuts, while shallow, shone in contrast to the dark wood.
On a hunch, I flashed the light up across the nearby ivory plaster wall. There was a message emblazoned there as well—STOP YUR SNOOPING OR DIE.
The arc of light swung wildly as I grabbed my upper arms. As I stared blankly at the defaced wall, a bang on the front door sent me running to the entrance, hoping that Brad and his fellow deputies had somehow arrived sooner than expected.
But outside the entry doors, framed in its thick glass panes, I spied a solitary figure—a tall, burly man with water dripping from his mane of white hair.
Brilliant blue eyes stared back at me. “Let me in, Amy!” Kurt Kendrick shouted.
I stared at him through the glass, uncertain if I should comply with this demand. What if he’d been the intruder? He could’ve fled out the back and appeared at the front doors easily enough.
But would Kurt—brilliant, manipulative, and cunning Kurt—lower his standards to leave such blatant messages? No, I thought, he’d drop cryptic hints, but face-to-face. And vandalism of a library? Not his style at all.
Besides, Brad would be here any minute.
I unlocked and opened the door, ushering Kurt into the small, ceramic-tiled foyer. “What are you doing here at this time of day, and in this weather?”
Kurt brushed back his hair with both hands, creating a spray of water droplets. “Sorry,” he said. “The rain just stopped, but I still got drenched. Let’s stay here.” He lifted one leather shoe to display the red mud clotted on its heel. “I don’t want to stain the carpet.”
“Again, why are you here?” I asked, tapping the flashlight against my palm. “I should tell you that the sheriff’s department has people headed this way. I called them because there was an intruder in the library just now.”
“I know.” Kurt used a silk handkerchief to wipe the mud from his shoe. “I saw them run around from the back of the building and sprint off across the street. Could’ve hit them, to tell you the truth.” He looked me over. “Perhaps I should have, given your expression.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzling over why he was so sure someone running from behind the library had actually been inside.
“You look haunted.” Kurt tossed the handkerchief into a nearby garbage bin. “I have others,” he added, obviously registering my surprise.
“I get that you were driving by, but how’d you know the person came from inside the library? They could’ve been running down the lane beside the building.”
Kurt’s lips curled into a smile. “That’s my girl—always thinking. Actually, I wasn’t just driving by. I was parked out front. I stopped when I glimpsed shadows moving inside the library. I knew the building should be closed, so”—he held up his hands—“I thought I should keep an eye on things and be prepared to call the authorities if necessary.”
“So you lied. You didn’t almost hit them.”
Kurt grinned. “Not with my car, no.”
“And you’re drenched because …”
“Because I jumped out of the Jag and pursued them for a few yards before giving up and returning to check on you.” He shrugged. “I saw you through one of those big windows when I was heading toward the door. Your flashlight clearly illuminated you.”
“Did you get a good look at the intruder? Can you identify him, or her?”
Kurt gazed over my head, his attention apparently caught by something outside. “No. But Amy, we need to talk. Not here,” he added quickly, as sirens pierced the air. “Can you come by my house tomorrow? Sometime in the early afternoon? I’d like to …” He tightened his lips as Brad and a few deputies strode up the stone steps outside the entry. “We can’t talk about it now. Tomorrow, say, around one o’clock?”
I studied his implacable face before turning to open the door for Brad. “All right,” I said, calculating how I could slip away the next day without alerting Aunt Lydia or Richard. I did need to pick up some items for Richard’s dinner party on Sunday. I could say I could only get the proper things from the fancier grocery store about forty-five minutes from Taylorsford …
“Amy, glad to see you’re okay.” Brad pulled off his hat and held it in front of his chest like a shield. He looked Kurt up and down. “And why exactly are you here, Mr. Kendrick?”
“Just driving by. Ms. Webber flagged me down, and of course I stopped,” Kurt replied smoothly.
Flagged him down? I studied my hands to hide my expression.
“Wait—did the guy attack you?” Brad gently cradled my hand in his and examined the darkening bruise on my wrist.
“Not sure it was a guy, and no, not directly. Whoever it was just threw a book at me to knock my phone from my hand. Collateral damage,” I added, lifting my hand and holding out my wrist to Kurt.
The older man’s eyes glittered like sapphire chips. “So I see. Well, fortunately, they didn’t actually lay hands on you.”
I met his gaze, and what I read there told me it was fortunate for them.
Maybe he has some idea who it was, I thought, as I gnawed the inside of my cheek. Was he just driving by, or following them, or—I took a deep breath—watching me?
Behind us, lights flared. “Power was just shut off at the junction box, sir,” one of Brad’s deputies called out from inside the library.
“Did they steal anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. They left something instead.”
Brad tightened his grip on the rim of his hat. “Left what?”
“Some graffiti. In the reading room area. Take a look for yourself.”
“I will. Deputy Coleman”—Brad motioned at one of the waiting deputies—“with me. As for you two, stay here until we can get statements.”
As Brad strode past me to enter the library proper, Kurt said, “Graffiti?”
“A couple of messages, actually.” I shot Kurt a sharp look. “A warning.”
“Really? What did it say?”
“What you’ve told me before. That I should stop trying to help the current investigations into Jeremy Adams’s death. At least, that’s what I assume it meant. The wording was rather primitive.”
“Or made to appear so.” Kurt looked down at me with a smile that did nothing to warm his craggy features. “I see you’ve thought of that as well. We definitely need to talk.”
“And we will, tomorrow. For now, I want to get these statements over with so I can walk home.” I glanced out at the clearing sky. “At least it isn’t raining anymore.”
“I will drive you home,” Kurt said, holding up his hand when I started to protest. “That intruder is still out there somewhere. I’m certainly not allowing you to walk home alone tonight.”
“Brad can take me,” I argued, as exhaustion swept over me. The last thing I wanted was to keep playing a cat-and-mouse game with Kurt.
“He probably won’t be done here for some time. Are you sure you want to wait that long?”
“It’s fine. Besides, I’ll have to make sure the library is secure before I leave. As soon as you give your statement, you go ahead and take off. I promise to stop by your house tomorrow sometime after one. We can talk more then.”
“Yes, we will. And perhaps I can convince you that, despite their rather crude methods, today’s intruder actually has the right idea.” Kurt’s eyes were very bright as he gave me a nod and turned to talk to Detective Carver, who’d come to take our statements.
He interviewed us one at a time in the workroom, and although I’d planned to contradict Kurt’s white lie about me flagging him down, for some reason I never did.
Chapter Eighteen
Saturday was one of those lovely September days where everything appeared to be rimmed in crystal. The sky was blue as a fine piece of Wedgwood, and the leaves, still green, were outlined with gold by the bright sunlight. I paused for a moment at Kurt Kendrick’s forest-green front door and inhaled a deep breath, enjoying the scent of the late-season roses that filled his cottage garden.
Built in the eighteenth century, Kurt’s home was one of the oldest houses in the area as well as one of the most beautiful. Set in a clearing surrounded by hardwood trees and tall pines, its three-story central section was built from local fieldstone. Large, narrow windows, the waviness of the glass betraying their age, were sunk deep into the mottled gray stones. The two-story wings that extended from either side of the central structure had wooden siding painted a pale jade green, and the smaller, square windows of the wings were flanked by black shutters. Ivy draped the largest of the stone chimneys, while the front of the house was enlivened by flower beds separated from the paved driveway by a whitewashed picket fence.
I’d visited this house many times over the past couple of years, but today my visit felt particularly momentous. I had to find out if Kurt Kendrick, known as Karl Klass when he’d first lived in Taylorsford over fifty years ago, had somehow been involved in the death of Jeremy Adams.
Or knows who was, I reminded myself, as I pressed my finger on the doorbell. Kurt hadn’t been the only person dealing drugs in the area back in the sixties. But knowing him, I was sure he’d been aware of every other dealer, and their activities, especially if those actions involved a murder.
Kurt answered the door and ushered me inside before striding off down his wide, antiques-and-art-laden central hallway. He headed for a staircase at the back of the house.
“I thought we’d talk up in the study,” he called over his shoulder as I jogged to keep up with him.
At the top of the stairs, where the upper hall was open to the floor below, I leaned on the balustrade to catch my breath. I also checked out the art hanging on the opposite wall, especially a small painting nestled between some larger works. A painting that could easily have been mistaken for a Van Gogh by anyone who knew art.
“It’s still there,” Kurt said, flashing me a toothy smile. “And, as I suspected, no one has guessed its true provenance. At least not yet. Now, come along. The study is this way.” He motioned toward a room at the other end of the short hallway.
As I entered, the first thing I noticed was a large oil painting hanging in the one wall space not occupied by wooden bookcases. A landscape, it depicted the Blue Ridge Mountains from a vantage point quite familiar to me.
“That’s one of my uncle’s pieces, isn’t it?” I padded across the thick Persian rug to examine the painting more closely. Although it was painted in a realistic style, it held an air of mystery—as if at any moment something momentous was about to occur in that quiet field bordered by trees.
“Yes. I bought it, and a few others, after the showing of Andrew’s paintings I hosted here last December.”
I turned to face Kurt. “You were one of the anonymous buyers? Aunt Lydia was surprised that the paintings sold so well, although she was grateful for her cut of the profits.”
“I didn’t do it out of charity.” Kurt’s gaze was focused on the landscape. “I genuinely wanted to own more of Andrew’s works.”
“I’m sure.” I sat down in a nearby wingback chair. Sinking into its buttery leather cushions, I surveyed the study, which I would’ve called a library instead. Books of every size and description overflowed shelves that filled almost every inch of wall space, from the tops of built-in lower cabinets to the high, coffered ceiling.
Kurt grabbed the back of a chair tucked under a rolltop desk built from solid oak. As he rolled the wooden office chair around, I couldn’t help but notice that its casters were gripped by feet that resembled the talons of some predatory bird.
How appropriate … I cleared my throat. “How about you tell me what you called me here to discuss? I don’t want to waste too much time. Richard is throwing a little dinner party tomorrow, and I want to hurry back to help with the preparations.”
“Of course. Straight to the point as always.” Kurt gave me a wink, but as soon as he sat down, his expression sobered. “But to be blunt—I asked you here to warn you.”
“The graffiti wasn’t enough?” I threw up my hands as his frown turned into a glower. “Okay, okay, I know you had nothing to do with that. Not your style.”
“Definitely not. I’d never deface any building, much less a library.” Kurt stretched his long legs out across the muted blue–and–rose gold pattern of the rug. “But I have been doing a little digging of my own—contacting some old acquaintances through my more discreet associates and so on. What I’ve heard is not encouraging.”
“You mean former drug-dealing acquaintances?”
“Yes.” Kurt rested one elbow on the wide arm of his chair and balanced his chin on the back of his hand. His gaze held a mixture of ferocity and fondness. “I’ve never pretended that I was an angel in my youth. Or anytime in my life, for that matter. But I do care about you, Amy, as well as many people in your circle of family and friends. I don’t want to see any of you come to any harm.”
