A Death Long Overdue Read online

  A Death Long Overdue

  A LIGHTHOUSE LIBRARY MYSTERY

  Eva Gates

  To: Mom

  Acknowledgments

  Since the publication of the first Lighthouse Library novel, By Book or By Crook, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm of the cozy-reading community. Your encouragement has kept this series going and I am sincerely grateful.

  Thanks to Kim Lionetti and Linda Wiken for tossing ideas around with me over a delicious breakfast somewhere in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Sometimes all a book needs is a spark.

  Thanks also to the team at Crooked Lane Books and my marvelous agent Kim Lionetti from Bookends, without whom Lucy, Charles, and the gang wouldn’t be able to get into so much trouble.

  Shelagh Mathers made the winning bid at auction as part of the Women Killing It Authors Festival to have a character in this book named after her mother. And thus we have Margaret Hurley, librarian. I hope you like my Margaret, Shelagh.

  Chapter One

  Reunions can be tricky things. Everyone involved approaches the gathering bursting with excitement and full of high expectations. Sometimes it turns out well: friends reconnect, photos of children and grandchildren are shared and exclaimed over, accomplishments praised, new friends made, and old enemies reconciled. Sometimes—not. Long-buried grievances are given fresh air, friendships doubted, old jealousies and resentments remembered, and new ones discovered.

  Everyone goes home miserable and tells their loved ones they had a marvelous time.

  Ten years later they do it all again.

  I don’t actually know this from personal experience. I missed my high school class’s tenth reunion because it was the same weekend as my second brother’s wedding. I would have preferred to attend the reunion. My brothers and I are not close, but family is family, my mother says when it suits her to think so. Besides, my sister in-law has no sisters or female cousins, so I had to be a bridesmaid. I’ll never forgive her for that frilly shocking-pink dress I was forced to wear. I’m short enough that I looked like a cartoon character in it. The humidity had done its work on my curly dark hair, adding to the cartoon aspect, and the color didn’t go well with the bad case of sunburn I’d suffered the weekend before.

  Last year, I missed my college’s tenth reunion because I’d just arrived here, in the Outer Banks, to take up the post of assistant director of the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. Everyone wrote to tell me they’d had a marvelous time.

  Right now, I was sincerely hoping Bertie James’s fortieth reunion to mark her class’s first day of undergrad studies would turn out to be the success she was expecting.

  “Our exhibit might not exactly be worthy of the Bodleian,” Charlene Clayton said, referring to the great English library where she’d worked for a few years, “but it’s impressive enough.”

  “Speaking as a North Carolinian,” Bertie replied, “I’m mighty impressed.”

  “Your friends and colleagues will love it.” I added under my breath, “I hope.”

  We stood back and admired the display—the history of libraries in North Carolina. Charlene and I had gathered artifacts from near and far and worked hard over the past few days to put it together. We were proudly showing it off to Bertie James, our boss and the library director.

  The idea for the exhibit had been Charlene’s, something to show Bertie’s college class when they gathered tomorrow evening for the start of their reunion weekend at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library.

  * * *

  We’d put the display together in secret, working into the night after Bertie had left for the day, our activities concealed behind old sheets strung across the entrance to the library’s alcove, and “Keep Out” signs prominently displayed. When the library was open, we’d stationed Charles, one of our more formidable staff members, at the entrance to keep the curious—Bertie most of all—out.

  Now it was time for the big reveal. At closing time on Thursday evening, library staff, board members, invited Friends of the Library, and lingering patrons had gathered to see it. Charlene ripped away the sheets; Charles returned to his favorite wingback chair next to the magazine rack to wash his whiskers and have a snooze; and everyone had suitably oohed and aahed.

  “I doubt,” Ronald Burkowski, our children’s librarian, said, “the Bodleian could have done better with the materials available.”

  Bertie clapped her hands. “You people are amazing.”

  “I’ll second that,” Charlene said modestly.

  “Meow,” added Charles from his chair.

  The exhibit was a collection of old photographs of libraries in North Carolina, as well as items librarian friends had sent us or we’d been able to uncover in the depths of the town hall basement. Stuff was down there that probably hadn’t been seen by a human being since the building was first built.

  We’d found a real card catalog and displayed it with the narrow drawers open to show the neat rows of little typewriter-printed cards; there was also a selection of photos showing enormous rooms full of row upon row of the neatly labeled wooden cabinets.

  Charlene pointed to a sign I’d hung on the back wall next to the window, showing a woman’s plump red lips with her index finger pressed to them, and the word “Silence” in loud black print. “I cannot begin to imagine how they kept the kids quiet when story time let out.”

  “I have a vison of them descending the stairs in a calm, neat little row,” Ronald said, “faces scrubbed, hair combed, socks pulled up, shirts tucked in, not saying a word under the stern eye of the children’s librarian. Not.”

  One of the photographs was of two women, in floor-sweeping skirts, high-necked blouses with puffy sleeves, and hair pulled sharply back, organizing a bookshelf, and another showed a woman on horseback, with a jaunty hat and split skirt, cradling a stack of books in her free hand. We laughed over a staff picture from the 1960s of the librarians—all women of course—with their big hair and orange and brown dresses or twin sets with pearls. Photos of patrons showed more big hair, along with flowery orange or checked pants or jeans with wide lower legs they called bell bottoms. A stern-faced librarian, complete with horn-rimmed glasses, hair pulled back into a tight bun, and high-necked blouse, sat behind a huge manual typewriter, her fingers poised above the keys. We’d dragged a similar machine out of storage, dusted it off, and displayed it next to a still-sharp letter opener, a memento of some long-ago Nags Head anniversary.

  “I’ve just noticed,” Charlene said, “there isn’t one man in any of these pictures. Librarian was a woman’s career back then and still largely is”—she acknowledged Ronald with a smile and nod that he returned—“but even the patrons in these pictures are all women.”

  “Is that Bertie’s office in that picture?” Mrs. Fitzgerald, the chair of the library board said. “It must be. The window’s the same, and there’s a slice of the marsh showing. Look at all those filing cabinets—there’s scarcely room for the director’s desk. Never mind that hideous broadloom, covering up the marvelous original flooring.”

  “The floor in my office isn’t that old,” Bertie said. “The broadloom was pulled up along with layers of plywood and linoleum and some rotting hardwood back in the 1990s, and new wood laid down then.”

  “I feel so old,” my aunt Ellen, one of the Friends of the Library, said. “I remember this stuff like it was yesterday, and now it’s ancient history.”

  A small stack of books had been placed on one side of the desk. I opened the cover of one to show everyone the withdrawal slip. A small cardboard pocket had been glued to the inside of the cover, and a handwritten record of people who checked the book out and a stamp for the day it was due back had been slipped inside. The book was The Celestine Prophecy by Jam
es Redfield, and the last due date for it was July 11, 1995. The book itself had suffered some damage—a spilled cup of coffee by the look of it—which would be why it had been removed from circulation. All these years later, we still got requests for that book.

  “Nineteen ninety-five,” Aunt Ellen muttered. “Ancient history.”

  “At least we’ve no cuneiform tablets or rolled-up parchment scrolls to show you,” Charlene said with what I thought was a tinge of regret.

  “The Lighthouse Library,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said, “came late to computer cataloguing, as I remember. Not many places were still using record cards like that one by the mid-nineties.”

  “The things that matter the most,” Bertie said, “haven’t changed. And that’s people reading good books and loving literature and wanting to improve their knowledge of science and history.”

  “Hear, hear,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said, and everyone murmured their agreement.

  “I remember that book.” Mr. Snyder, one of our regular patrons, pointed to The Celestine Prophecy. “It was a huge bestseller. Bunch of made-up nonsense pretending to be a novel.”

  “Which,” Charlene pointed out, “is pretty much the definition of a novel.”

  “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “I do,” Bertie said. “The Celestine Prophecy struck a chord in a lot of people at the time.”

  “I don’t see any pictures of the library cat,” fifteen-year-old Charity Peterson said.

  Bertie laughed and gave Charles an affectionate glance. “Perish the thought. An animal in a library!”

  “Speaking of ancient history,” Aunt Ellen said. “Look at that computer. It’s huge.”

  From the depths of the town hall basement, we’d excavated a real, although no longer working, Commodore 64. Charlene had searched the newspaper archives and found an article on the purchase of the machine, along with a picture of the then library director proudly showing it off to wide-eyed children.

  “That’s a computer?” a pre-teenage boy said. “I thought it was a TV or something.” At that moment his phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the screen. “Mom’s here.” He hefted his book bag and ran out of the library.

  “A computer a child carries around in their pocket,” my aunt said. “Whoever would have thought?”

  “When you put it like that,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said, “we are old, Ellen.” Turning to us, she continued, “My congratulations to Charlene and Lucy for honoring Bertie and her class with such a thoughtful gesture.” Bertie’s class had gone to the University of North Carolina, but after graduation several of the women settled in the eastern part of the state, and those from further afield liked the idea of a summer weekend in the Outer Banks, so they’d decided on Nags Head as the perfect spot at which to gather.

  Bertie, normally calm, unflappable, the very picture of the yoga instructor she was, had been excited about the forthcoming reunion for weeks. She was in touch with some of the women regularly, she said, but others she hadn’t seen for years.

  Our library isn’t large: there are plenty of better places for gathering twenty women to laugh about the joys and terrors of their youth; show off pictures of families and pets, homes and holidays; and brag about their careers. But the Lighthouse Library is something very special, and Bertie was proud to offer it as a venue for the kick-off party. And Ronald, Charlene, and I were determined to show it off to its best advantage and to make Bertie proud.

  “You’ve done a splendid job,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said.

  “Did you really wear your hair like that?” Charity Peterson peered at a photo at the front of the display. Bertie’s freshman class: the group of beaming young women, arms around each other, posing on the wide steps of an ivy-covered building. “Ugh.”

  Her mother poked her in the ribs.

  “What?” Charity said. “That sweater? Purple, orange, and brown stripes? Ugh.”

  I’d been thinking much the same thing, but I didn’t say so.

  “Which one are you, Ms. James?” Charity asked.

  “Second on the left,” Bertie said. “In the purple, orange, and brown sweater.”

  Charity slipped a peek at Bertie and said nothing, clearly thinking that Bertie, today wearing a light flowing dress of pale blue, had changed.

  Which she had. That college picture was forty years old. Taken before I was born, never mind Charity.

  “The 1980s and ’90s,” Louise Jane McKaughnan said, “were not known for the elegance of fashion.”

  “I like it,” Theodore Kowalski said. “Everyone looks so young and free.”

  “Oh yes,” Bertie said, “those were the days. We were young and free.”

  “You still are, Bertie,” Connor McNeil, mayor of Nags Head, said.

  She gave him a big smile.

  “You’ve done a fabulous job with this collection of old junk,” Connor said. “Feel free to come around any time and clear out the basement.”

  I studied the photo of a row of cabinets with neatly printed little labels on them. “Hard to imagine having to do all that on paper.”

  “We managed,” Bertie said, “just fine.”

  “Some of this stuff’s well before your time, isn’t it, Bertie?” Connor asked.

  “Charlene and I gathered whatever we could find,” I said. “This exhibit isn’t meant to be only about Bertie’s year, but about the history of libraries in general. We thought the women would get a kick out of it.”

  “When do your friends arrive?” Mrs. Fitzgerald asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Bertie said. “They’ll be dribbling in throughout the day and gathering here tomorrow evening for a welcome reception.”

  “Which is not,” I reminded Mrs. Fitzgerald as well as Connor, who, as the major of Nags Head, was the overall boss of the library, “an official library function. Charlene, Ronald, and I are working it as a favor to Bertie, and the refreshments are being paid for by the attendees themselves.”

  The three—four including Charles, and one must never forget Charles—employees of the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library were a close group and extremely fond of Bertie. We’d do just about anything for her. Including acting as waitstaff and cleaning crew for her college reunion. We’d been through some tough times together, and Bertie always had our backs.

  “You don’t have to keep reminding me, Lucy,” Connor said.

  “She’s afraid someone will complain about inappropriate use of library resources,” Louise Jane said. “But you needn’t worry, Lucy, honey. I’ll be here to set them straight.”

  “Thank you so much LJ,” Charlene said. “We can always count on you.”

  “I would hope so,” Louise Jane sniffed.

  Connor put his arm loosely around my shoulders. “The town’s fully supportive of Bertie hosting her class here. We’re happy to have the tourist dollars, if nothing else. Where are they all staying?”

  “Most of them are at the Ocean Side,” Bertie said, “but a few have friends or family to visit, or are coming with their families to make a vacation out of it. One or two of the women live locally.”

  We studied the exhibit for a few moments more, and then Bertie turned to us. It might have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much. Lucy. Charlene. Ronald. This weekend means the world to me.”

  Louise Jane shifted from one foot to the other and cleared her throat.

  “And you as well, Louise Jane,” Bertie said. “You’ve proven yourself to be a valuable member of our library community many times.”

  Louise Jane waved her hand in the air and sniffed again, but I could tell she was pleased.

  “I can’t wait to show it to Helena,” Bertie said. “She’s going to love it.”

  “Is she in one of these pictures?” Connor pointed to a picture of the 1990s-era library staff.

  “I don’t see her,” Bertie said.

  “She wasn’t one for the limelight,” Aunt Ellen said. “She pretty much stayed inside her offi
ce and never came out unless she had something or someone to criticize.”

  I cast a quick glance at my aunt Ellen, who rarely ever had a bad word to say about anyone. Helena must have rubbed her the wrong way somehow.

  Helena Sanchez had been the library director before Bertie. I’d never met her because, on retirement, she moved to Florida, and as far as I knew, she’d never come back before now. It was just a coincidence that she was in the Outer Banks for a visit at the same time as Bertie’s reunion, but when Bertie heard about it, she invited her predecessor to come to tonight’s party, mainly to see our historical exhibit and talk about the old times in libraries.

  Charles leaped off the shelf and landed nimbly at my feet. He rubbed himself against my legs and meowed as though to say, “Enough of this standing around and talking. It’s dinner time.”

  Bertie agreed. “Thank you for coming everyone. It’s time to close the library. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

  “As do we all,” Theodore Kowalski said. “I haven’t even started the current book club selection yet, and I’m very much looking forward to it. The Moonstone. One of my absolute favorites. Are you reading it, Connor?”

  “I’m trying,” Connor said. “When I can find the time. It’s a big book.”

  “As are most of the great works of literature. Go big or go home—isn’t that what young people today say?” asked Teddy who was all of thirty-three years old. He, unlike almost every other person on planet Earth, likes to pretend he’s older than he is. He thinks it gives him, and his rare-book-dealing business, a more serious air.

  “The Moonstone?” Charity asked. “Is it about travel to space? I like those old-timey books about rocket ships and weird aliens.”

  “The Moonstone of the title,” Theodore said, “is a precious jewel with a mysterious past that’s stolen during a house party in England. It’s a mystery novel. The mystery novel, some would say.”

  The group began to disburse. While Theodore explained the plot of our book club selection to Charity, Mrs. Fitzgerald called good night and walked out with Mrs. Peterson who, as always, had some suggestions for expanding the children’s programs at the library. Ronald and Charlene collected their briefcases and left; the remaining patrons gathered their books, and I went behind the desk to check them out. Bertie headed down the hall to her office to gather her things.