Panic Button Part 20

A whimper from Marianne.

And Alvin was on his feet.

His teeth clenched and his palms flat against his desk, he turned to his wife. "Marianne, honestly, this isn't a good time. We're kind of in the middle of something and-"

"I know. I said I was sorry." She sniffled. "It's just-"

"That we need to finish up," Kate said.

"And get out of here and back to the B and B," I put in.

"n.o.body's going anywhere. Not until you women learn to get along!"

In all the weeks I'd been appearing in court thanks to my neighbors' not-so-neighborly complaints, I'd never heard Alvin raise his voice. Now, it ricocheted against the walls like buckshot on a barn door.

We pulled in a collective gasp and as one, took a step back and away from his desk.

Alvin, apparently, was as surprised by his outburst as the rest of us.

"Look what you've reduced me to!" he said, suddenly ashen and shaking like a hoochie-coochie dancer. "I've been doing this job for nearly thirty years and in thirty years of weekend drunks and fighting fishermen and vandals tearing up the mini-golf course...in thirty years I've never lost my temper. Now you three..."

Since Marianne was standing next to me and sobbing, I can't say for certain, but I think Alvin growled to emphasize his point.

That was right before he pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Maybe what we all need," he said, "is a time-out."

"Great." Kate reached for her Coach bag and slung it over one slim shoulder. "I'm out of here."

"No. That's not what I meant. You're not going anywhere, Kate. Not yet. None of you are." Alvin sat back down and folded his trembling hands together on the desk in front of him, his suddenly flint-hard gaze hopping over each of us before it came to rest on his wife. "You have the floor, honey. Tell us what's going on. That will give us all a chance to take a few deep breaths and get our collective heads back where they belong before we figure out what we're going to do about the problems in Ms. Cartwright, Ms. Wilder, and Ms. Morrisey's neighborhood."

"Okay. Sure." In a perfect mirror image of her husband, Marianne clutched her hands together at her waist. "It's the library. Our funding. We're..." A single tear slipped down her cheek. "Oh, Alvin. What are we going to do? We're going to lose Lucy At.w.a.ter's grant!"

It goes without saying that this meant something (and apparently something important, from the looks on the faces around me) to everyone but me. Newcomer, remember, and I leaned forward, to remind Marianne that I was there. And I was lost.

"Lucy At.w.a.ter," she said, her voice clogged with tears. "She died...oh, it must be twenty years ago now. Don't you think, Chandra? Wasn't it the winter Bill Smith over at the hatchery fell into the fish tank and drowned? It must have been right after that, because I remember Lucy telling me how much she missed Bill. They used to date, you know. Well, I'm not exactly sure it could be called dating. But they'd step out together and-"

Alvin cleared his throat.

Marianne gulped and collected herself and the quickly untangling ends of her story. "When Lucy died, she left the library a chunk of money. It funds most of our programs, but there's a catch. We can only get our yearly payment if we have an ongoing book discussion group. And..." Marianne's shoulders rose and fell in a slow-motion shrug. "These days no one's signing up."

"People are too busy," Kate said.

"Yes, of course, that's part of the problem." Marianne dug a tissue out of her purse and touched it to her nose. "There are so many other distractions these days, books aren't high on enough people's lists. The other part of our problem is that there are so many summer visitors here to the island. They don't sign up for programs because they know they're not going to be around long enough to partic.i.p.ate more than once or twice. I don't know what to do. I'd hate for kids to come to the island in the summer and stop at the library and..." A fresh cascade of tears started and Alvin handed Marianne his handkerchief. She blew her nose. "Wouldn't it just be awful for some poor, sweet child to show up at the library and find it closed?" she wailed.

"It's really too bad," Kate agreed. "Now can we leave?"

In the hope that she was actually right about something, I grabbed my purse.

Chandra didn't move a muscle. That is, until she slipped an arm around Marianne's shoulders. "Of course you're upset. Who wouldn't be!" With her other hand, she grabbed for the denim hobo bag she'd plunked on a nearby chair when she entered the courtroom. She opened it, dug around inside, and came up holding a small gla.s.s bottle.

"It's neroli oil," Chandra said, pressing the bottle into Marianne's hand. "Rub it on your solar plexus. You know, right here." She pressed a hand to a spot just under her own stomach. "That's your Manipuri chakra, and remember what we talked about when you came for your last crystal healing, that's the chakra that corresponds to feelings of fear and anxiety, and that's what we need to contend with first before we look for an answer to your problem. No worries," she added, when Marianne gave the bottle a questioning look. "Neroli smells really nice, zesty and spicy with a little flowery note. Go on, Marianne, just pull up your sweater and-"

"Not in my courtroom!" Alvin was on his feet again and one look from him and Marianne blanched and handed the bottle back to Chandra.

With a sigh of epic proportions, Kate dropped into the nearest chair and checked her text messages. "This is a perfect example of everything I've been telling you, Alvin," she said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. "I told you, the woman plays sitar music. Loud. Day in and day out. Chandra's nuts. Do you get what I'm talking about now that you see her in action? Someone needs to do something about the music and the bonfires and the chanting."

"Actually..." I stepped back, my weight against one foot, lest Alvin get lost in the moment and forget the real reason we were there. "What someone needs to do something about is Jerry Garcia. That stupid cat-"

"Is nicer than a lot of people I know," Chandra grumbled.

Since she really didn't know me, I didn't take this personally.

Kate dropped her phone back in her purse. "Can we leave now? It's obvious nothing's going to get done. And I don't have time for this nonsense. Just tell Bea here..." she cast an icy green glance in my direction, "to cool it with Grand Central Station, and the Good Witch of the North over there..." She looked toward Chandra. "To put a sock in it, and-"

"And the cat!" I b.u.t.ted in before Kate could get even more carried away. "Don't forget the freakin' cat!"

Honestly, I hadn't even noticed that there was a thick legal book on Alvin's desk until he picked it up and slammed it back down.

That got our attention. So did his voice. He spoke in what was nearly a whisper, each word so clipped and so precise, there was no doubt that he meant what he said.

"I've had enough. We're going to solve this problem once and for all. And we're going to do it right now."

"Make Bea close her B and B?" Kate asked.

"Make Chandra keep her cat inside?" I countered.

"Make Kate turn off that horrible music?" Chandra retorted.

Alvin banged a fist down on top of the book. "No. None of those things. What you women need to do..." His gaze moved from one to the other of us. "What all of you need to do is learn to get along. You're neighbors. Start acting like it. You have to stop talking at each other and start talking to each other. And I'll tell you what, I'm going to go down in South Ba.s.s history, because I'm the one who's going to make sure you do it."

Yeah, I sounded as skeptical as I was feeling when I asked, "You're going to sentence us to talk to each other?"

Alvin's smile was sleek. "I'm going to do you one better than that," he said. "I'm going to make each of you report to the library at seven o'clock, this Monday, and every Monday for the next year. I'm sentencing you three to be a book discussion group."

Marianne's miserable expression morphed into a smile.

Chandra's mouth dropped open.

Kate (do I even need to say it?) rolled her eyes.

Good thing one of us didn't lose her head. "You can't do that," I said. "It's not legal."

"Well, it's not illegal," he told me. "And believe me, it beats all the other things I could do to you. You don't want to find out what those things are."

I had to agree with Alvin there.

But just for the record, that didn't mean I had to like it.

From the looks on their faces, I'm pretty sure Kate and Chandra didn't either, and I left the town hall with a cynical smile on my face, thinking it was the first thing we'd ever agreed on.

No, at that point, we didn't think of ourselves as the League of Literary Ladies. Not yet, anyway. I'm pretty sure we didn't think of ourselves as anything but royally p.i.s.sed, not to mention inconvenienced.

But then, that was before the murder. And the murder?

Well, that changed everything.

Berkley Prime Crime t.i.tles by Kylie Logan.

b.u.t.tON HOLED.

HOT b.u.t.tON.

PANIC b.u.t.tON.