Shuffle: A Novel Part 22

"Well, there was the speech and then the song afterward. At least five minutes. Maybe six or seven?"

Callie nodded, face etched with serious, grim lines.

Arbor was fidgeting beside me. Well, he wasn't fidgeting in the sense that he was moving. In fact, he was standing extra still. But he was mentally fidgeting. At least, I thought he was.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Besides the obvious."

There was something bottled up inside him. He shook his head.

"No, I can tell there's something. Otherwise why would you still be here?"

"I just want to make sure you're safe."

I laughed. "What's the murderer going to do, come back and murder the one million cops that are here, right now, with guns, actively searching for evidence?"

Arbor didn't answer.

"Look, I know there's something... different... about you."

He snapped his head around and faced me, staring deep into my eyes. "Different. How?"

"Anyone would notice who'd spent time with you," I said. "The way you listened to me about my blackout in the park. Your weird eyes. I mean, the way your face and speech patterns sometimes change. Like you're trying on different personalities."

"I've spent time with a lot of people since I moved here," said Arbor. "None of them noticed any of that."

"Maybe you feel safe around me," I said. "Like you can let your guard down."

"You think I have a 'guard' I can let down," he mused. "That's rich." I think he almost smiled. A real one.

I shrugged. My feet were aching after so many hours of high heels. I undid the straps and lazily kicked them off, watching them fall empty and formless onto the floor. Then I sank into a squat, sighing. "It's just so horrible."

Arbor slid down the wall and joined me. "I know."

Something clicked in my head. "You knew."

He went still again. What did he remind me of? The child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The rabbit that freezes before the fox.

Like he was hunted. Like I was the one hunting him.

"Arbor, you knew that somebody was going to die at this dance. How did you do that?"

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, so that we were facing each other. I thought I saw a flash of red in his eyes. Just for a moment, and then gone like the last spark off an empty lighter.

"Do you remember everything I said to you?" he asked.

I nodded. "I a I think so..."

"Everything I ever said. Do you have a good memory?"

I shook my head. Shrugged. "Yeah... I mean, I have a great memory for words. Numbers, not so much, but..."

"Evangeline, my lips are crushed under the weight of ages. I can say no more than I have said. You know I am a liar."

"Yes."

"You cannot trust me."

"I..." The truth was, that's exactly what I was beginning to do. And while he talked of the 'weight of ages,' I felt my own heart expand just enough to let him in.

"So take my words, and heed none of them. You know who you should listen to?"

I shook my head.

He smiled again, a fake one this time. Broad and toothy. "All women should listen to their mothers. Mothers are full of wisdom. And they never lie without a good reason."

Then he winked. He closed one eye. Slowly, deliberately winked.

He stood up and pushed open the heavy door. Before he slipped out, he threw me another unreadable look. The door closed. The bar clicked back up into place, and he was gone.

Well, that was certainly the most interesting conversation we'd ever had. He didn't deny that he was harboring secrets. But what the heck did they have to do with my mom?

Before I could muse about it any further, Callie snapped her notepad shut and pulled me over to where she and Toby were wrapping things up near the stage. Thank G.o.d the body was gone. I'd only seen it for the s.p.a.ce of about two seconds, and even that was two too many. Poor Quentin. I wanted to remember him in the cla.s.sroom, getting excited about obscure points of Latin grammar, eyes twinkling... not hanging limp and purple-faced from a noose.

"Evi, it's definitely the same killer," Callie whispered. She held out her hand. An evidence bag was crumpled in her palm. In it was a small blue key. Locker number 113.

"The dastardly key-leaver strikes again," said Toby. He frowned. "We'll have to think up a better nickname for him."

I suddenly heard Quentin's voice in my head. There's nothing more tedious than being named after an ordinal number. You always feel as though you're waiting in line for something.

I'm sorry, Quentin. Maybe if I'd just thought a little harder, I'd have been able to figure this whole thing out by now...

"And I think we have to accept the communication theory." Callie flipped to a page in her notepad and held it up to me. "Look what was written along his thumb."

this living hand...

"What?" I took the notepad and stared down at the phrase. "That doesn't make any sense. Well, the hand part, sure, but... living?"

"I know. And it was written in red ink."

"Weird."

The three of us stood around for a few moments, silently contemplating the situation.

"Well," said Callie, finally. "There's only one thing to do." She stuffed the evidence bag with the key into her breast pocket and simultaneously straightened the badge on her chest.

"Go see what's in locker 113," I said. "Off to the library!"

"No," said Toby. "Hold on."

"What?"

"We should bring that cla.s.smate of yours down to the station, Evi. That Arbor kid. He must have been at the dance, right? Didn't somebody get his statement?"

"He just left," I said.

"What? Callie, did you know he was here? Why didn't you question him?"

"There were so many witnesses. Teachers, chaperones... We had to release all of the students. I couldn't detain them here, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the scene for forensics. They'll all be questioned sooner or later, but this is a big school. There were probably three or four hundred people here tonight."

"I can't believe you didn't think to hold the one suspect we have on this case."

"It's my case, Toby. And I'm the one who destroyed evidence, remember? It would look odd to let the rest of the students go and keep just one. The bra.s.s would want to know what we have on him."

I cut in. "Look, you don't need to question Arbor. At least not right away; not tonight. I don't think he has anything to do with this. Really."

"That's quite a tune-change, Evi." said Toby. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Sure, but a lot's happened in the last few days. I was dancing with him during the song. The one after George's speech."

"Aha."

I rolled my eyes in frustration. Like, fine, I have a crush on him. But I also really don't think he's the killer anymore. And I came to that conclusion independently of my crush. Well, mostly.

"And where was he, during George's speech?" asked Toby.

"I'm not sure. In the crowd. But he wouldn't have had time..."

There was an uncomfortable silence between us, filled with the sound of shoes squeaking on the basketball court, teachers and chaperones chatting as they waited to be questioned for a second or third time, and the activity of the forensics team up on the stage. Then Toby breathed in deeply, and his back slumped. He looked weary.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's your investigation, Cal. I guess... I used to be the big cheese around here until not so long ago."

I noticed that he clutched his cane a little tighter as he said those words. Maybe in anger. It was understandable a when he'd been shot, his whole world had been pulled out from underneath him. He wasn't even supposed to be here, now. Should have been back at the station riding a desk, except that Callie had intervened on his behalf.

"No, I'm sorry," said Callie. "I should have been more sensitive to that." She straightened her shoulders. "But I don't think I mishandled anything."

Toby nodded. "You're fine, kid."

"We're going to delegate what's left here and head over to the library."

"Saddle up," I said.

Now it was Callie's turn to roll her eyes as she led the way to the parking lot.

The night seemed wild as we drove, our lights flashing silently across the damp, empty streets. Apparently it had rained a little while we were inside. The air smelled like wet peat now, and the wind screamed off mountain peaks high above us. We parked in front of the library's grim facade and watched as the first fall leaves blew across its face. The lights were on. Callie had called ahead on the way, not expecting to get an answer. But Mrs. Beasley happened to be working late.

She met us at the front door and let us in.

"h.e.l.lo Callie, Evi. Officer Collier." They shook hands, and I could tell that they'd met before. In fact, there was something in her eyes as she looked at him... Something that I'd seen in Callie's eyes, too. Apparently my sister wasn't the only one who had a crush on Toby.

"You won't find anything," Mrs. Beasley a.s.sured us. "I'm the only one who's been in here since we closed at seven."

"What have you been doing?" asked Toby.

"Cataloging, processing new books, and setting up for the special children's program we're putting on tomorrow. Read-aloud and a puppet show. You remember those, don't you, Evi?"

She smiled sweetly at me as we made our way up the stairs toward the lockers. It's true. I used to be a read-aloud junkie when I was little. I'd come to the library every Sunday afternoon and sit on my mother's lap as a volunteer read picture books to a crowd of children. They were happy memories. The kind that recently I'd been trying to bury.

"So you were mostly downstairs," said Callie, "and in your office?"

Mrs. Beasley shrugged. "Yes, I suppose. But as you saw, the doors were locked."

"If we don't find anything in the locker..." said Toby, slowly.

"If we got here before the killer..." continued Callie.

"Maybe we can catch him in the act of planting the evidence?" I suggested.

Callie snapped her fingers. "Exactly right."

"What evidence?" asked Mrs. Beasley, voice soft and curious. Almost as if she felt guilty for prying into the affairs of the dead.

"No idea," said Callie. "Nothing was missing from the corpse. I mean, nothing major. He still had his shoes on."

Something occurred to me then. Something really, really obvious. But it was something that the police didn't know about.

"Did you find the book?" I asked.

Three adult heads whipped around and stared at me. "Book?" asked Callie.

"Quentin always carries a copy of The Aeneid. It's his favorite thing in the world. I've never seen him without it! Even when he's lecturing in cla.s.s, he's always clutching it under one arm."

Callie stopped in front of the lockers, whipping open her notepad and skimming through her crime scene data. She ran her finger down a list of items similar to the one she'd showed me for Ernest Tucker Smith.

"No book. Toby, did you...?"

He shook his head. "n.o.body mentioned anything to me about a book."

Callie shrugged and held up the key. "Only one way to find out."

"Officer Collier, may I have a word with you?" asked Mrs. Beasley, suddenly. "In private?"

Callie's face fell. Toby looked grim. "Now?" he asked. "Can we do this first?" The key was beckoning us all.

"Just one minute."

Mrs. Beasley pulled him away into one of the quiet reading rooms, while Callie and I waited outside. I could see them through the gla.s.s, but the soundproofed door prevented any of their conversation from leaking out. Mrs. Beasley was talking softly. She lifted the corner of her mouth in a seductive smile, one that had obviously had a profound effect on men twenty-five years earlier. She was still really pretty. What people call 'a handsome woman.' I could only imagine the boy magnet she'd been in high school.

"Um, did they date?" I asked Callie.