Catchup and another excerpt

       I'm still up to my neck in busy, but I'm staying on top of it. So far. Keep your fingers crossed. A quick catch-up:
      - The play is going well. My cast is delivering all that I ask for them and more. We open one week from today. Yikes! Exciting and scary.
      - My back continues to heal slowly. It hurts most of the time, but not so much that I can't function.
      - No news on my sister other than what I've already told you. We'll know more -- I hope -- after the surgery next Wednesday. Her spirits are good, and she's a fighter through and through. We are hoping and praying for the best outcome possible. Thank you for your continued prayers.
      - I haven't wrote on Darkness, Oklahoma since Saturday. Can't find the energy or time. I hope to dive back into it this Saturday.
      - The excerpts for Murder by Dewey Decimal are in correct order and follow one after another, unlike those for Darkness, Oklahoma, which are from all over the book.
      - Yes, Murder by Dewey Decimal is done. Been done for at least 20 years. I am revising it slightly as I post it, but otherwise, it is as I wrote it all those years ago on that "letter perfect" dot matrix printer.
      - Speaking of which, here's another excerpt. We meet Chief Donaldson, who is the third voice in the book. I like the chief a lot. He's my favorite in the book.

Excerpt 1.3 from Murder by Dewey Decimal
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.

      Most people who knew Ryton Police Chief Charles Donaldson knew he had an ulcer. When one of his officers was being a particular pain, he would look the offender in the eye and say, "You're aggravating my ulcer. I wouldn't do that if I was you." Officers who aggravated the chief's ulcer usually ended up patrolling Roger's Bar and Grill on a Saturday night and could count on at least one knuckle-busting and body-bruising fight. Citizens who aggravated his ulcer usually ended up in jail.
      Most people also thought his ulcer had been caused by sixteen years as Ryton's police chief. They were wrong. His ulcer was caused by peaches. Or more correctly, the lack of them.
      Five years ago, the chief purchased a orchard, a "peach of a deal" as the real estate agent had put it.
      "A waste of money," Maggie said, pacing around the kitchen.
      She turned and faced the chief. "You should have taken our retirement money and burned it. At least, that way we would have gotten some heat from it!"
      "You wait. That orchard will give us a good living when I retire," he told his wife.
      Maggie had looked coldly at him, and, for the first time in their many long years of marriage, turned and walked out. The kitchen door closed decisively behind her. The chief should have realized the door was an omen, but he was relieved -- and puzzled -- because it hadn't been as bad as he thought it was going to be. She'll come around when those peaches start bringing in money, he thought, reassuring himself.
      And that might have been true -- if the orchard had cooperated. The first year, the weather warmed early and then froze again, killing the peach buds. The second year was a repeat of the first with a drought thrown in just to keep things interesting. The third year, the weather was perfect for both the peaches and bugs. Lots of bugs. The county agent said the orchard should have been sprayed early. The chief sprayed late, but to keep the bugs to some controllable level, he had to spray so much that he finally decided that it was cheaper to let the bugs have the crop that year and spray early next year. The fourth year, nothing happened. But few of the trees budded. Too much stress, the county agent said. The comment was about the trees, but the chief was under a strain, too. This year, everything looked good. The chief kept waiting for the next disaster, and the suspense was keeping his ulcer aggravated.
      And one of the most annoying things was that Maggie refused to comment on the orchard. She wouldn't talk about it good or bad. No 'I told you so's.' No 'You should have know better's.' For four years going on five, not a word about it passed her lips. It didn't exist for her.
      "The orchard looked good today," the chief would say.
      "Debbie -- you know, Edith Worney's granddaughter -- has the chicken pox," Maggie would say. "I do hope none of the rest of the kids get it. Although it's probably best they get it now when they're young. Darlene Ogden got it real bad when she was twenty-five."
      "I think we're going to have a good crop."
      "Darla had a horrible time with it," Maggie would continue. "You couldn't hardly see her face for the sores."
      And if Maggie didn't bring up Darla, it was Mrs. Henderson's cats or P.C. McGee's drinking. If the chief kept pursuing the subject, she left the room. He had done everything he could think of, but she remained silent on the orchard. The chief had made Maggie mad before -- after all, they'd been married for nearly forty years -- but she had never done this before. Usually, after giving him a good scolding, she would forgive him. He had never thought he could want a tongue-lashing, but he had discovered it was preferable to silence.
      He'd been at the orchard when this call came through. Murders didn't happen often in Ryton; the last one had been about six months ago and resulted from a domestic squabble. The wife turned herself in. Hardly any investigation was needed. In his experience, the chief had found murders were usually easy to solve. If you checked the wife, boyfriend, husband, mistress or business partner, you found the murderer. People killed other people for passion or profit. Bernard, for instance, would have something to gain by her death since he would probably become the Head Librarian. People had been killed for less.
      Yet, as the chief sat behind a desk in Bernard's office, watching Bernard answer questions, he was thinking he had never seen a more unlikely murder suspect. Something in the way Bernard held himself and the shocked look in his eyes told the chief that murder was not in Bernard's working vocabulary.
      "So what did you do after you found the body?" Lieutenant Ron Sims asked Bernard.
      "I went up front and called the police and told Millie -- Millie Sader, she's the day aide -- that Mrs. Ryton-Storer had been in an accident and that we shouldn't open the library until the police came, and then ... then I was sick." Bernard looked pale.
      "Did you see or hear anything suspicious?" Sims asked.
      "No." Bernard shook his head. "There was no one around."
      "Why didn't you leave the library and wait outside?" the chief asked.
      "Should I have?" Bernard asked earnestly. "Because I might have disturbed the evidence?"
      "Well, there's that, too," the chief said. "But, what if the murderer had been inside still?" The chief hadn't thought Bernard's face could get any whiter, but it did.
      "I never thought of that," Bernard said. "Do you think he was?"
      The chief shrugged. "Maybe. Did you notice anything missing? Did the library keep any money in the building?"
      "We have about twenty dollars that we keep for change if someone needs to pay a fine. I don't know if it's missing. I didn't look around so I don't know if anything's gone, but the library doesn't have much besides books, a couple of typewriters, and a photocopier."
      "I read where rare books could bring lots of money," the chief said.
      "Yes, but we don't have any that I know of."
      "Computers? Fax machines? TVs?"
      Bernard shook his head. "Mrs. Ryton-Storer didn't allow them."
      The chief thought for a moment. "Maybe someone was mad at her. Had she fought with anyone that you know of in the past couple of days?"
      "Well, practically everyone who came in here," Bernard said. "She wasn't very friendly, you know, but I don't think she made anyone mad enough to kill her."
      "What did she fight with them about?"
      "Mostly about the books. If they kept them too long or if she thought they were in worse shape than when they were checked out. Sometimes she would inspect the books before she'd let them be checked in, and if they were damaged, she'd try to make the person pay for them. It really made a lot of people mad. But, to be fair, she might have had a point. A lot of books are destroyed or stolen here. It's quite a problem."
      "Did she fight with the staff?" the chief asked.
      "Well, yes." Bernard seemed reluctant to continue.
      "Did she scrap with anyone in particular?" The chief leaned back, but he was watching Bernard closely.
      "Yesterday, Jay Jones, the janitor, got on her wrong side. Her office is supposed to be cleaned only on the second Monday of the month. Jay's going on vacation next week so I told him to do yesterday." Bernard grimaced. "She wasn't pleased with him or me, and she let us know about it. But, he just blew it off, and so did I. If you let everything she did annoy you, you wouldn't last long here."
      "Did you like her?" the chief asked.
      "I ... No, she resented me being here," Bernard said. "I was going to leave in a month or so. I have some job offers I'm looking into ..."
      "Who all has keys to this place?" the chief asked.
      "I do. Millie does. Jay has a set. And I think that's it." Bernard frowned. "In fact, I remember a couple of months ago, the county assessor wanted to get in here after hours, and they had to call Mrs. Ryton-Storer because City Hall didn't have a set. She was extremely careful about security."
      "Were the doors unlocked this morning?" the chief asked.
      "No. I remember unlocking the side one to let myself in and the front one to talk to Millie. The other two doors are fire exits, and if they were open, the alarms would be going off."
      "Have you ever been arrested before?"
      "Good god, no."
      "I keep thinking I've heard your name before."
"I've never even had a parking ticket here."
      The chief studied him for a moment and then turned to Sims. "Take Mr. Worthington around the library and see if anything's missing or not where it should be."
      Sims left the room with Bernard in tow. Deputy James Harris stuck his head in and asked, "Do you want to talk to the Sader girl now?"
      "What's her story?" the chief asked.
      "Basically, she doesn't have one. Worthington didn't let her in when she came to work because of the victim's 'accident.' She went to the drugstore and picked up some stuff and came back here."
      "In that case, no. Just send her on home and tell her we may need to talk to her later. What about Jay Jones? Is he out there?" the chief asked.
Harris shook his head.
      "Tell Worthington when Jones comes in, I want to see him."
      Harris left. The chief sighed and decided to see if the coroner had anything for him. He stepped out into the library and gazed around the building. He had visited the library once about four years ago and probably just a couple of times in the years before that, and he needed to set the layout in his mind again.
      A huge check-out desk dominated the small lobby, squatting squarely in the middle of the room. To the right of the front doors were Agatha's office, which was the tower room, then Bernard's much smaller room and finally the lounge. To the left were the two restrooms, a storage and workroom and the elevator. About twenty feet behind the checkout desk, wide marble stairs rose gradually, leading to the second floor. A storage closet was underneath the stairs. Going around the stairs would lead into the fiction room, which was filled with rows of shelves. Down the center of the room were reading carrels.
      The chief strode across the black and white marble floor and up the stairs and paused at the top. The layout of the upstairs where the nonfiction was kept was similar to the fiction room but smaller lengthwise, beginning where the elevator opened, allowing a two-story ceiling for the lobby below. It had no carrels, although there was room for them. The body had been found on the right side of the room, a few feet from a wall display-case that featured Civil War items. The chief remembered the display from his visit four years ago when he was trying to find some books on orchards. He also remembered that Agatha hadn't been much help in locating any -- not that she had put out much effort to do so.
      The chief walked over to where County Coroner Josh Dimes was preparing the body for shipping. As he watched Dimes, he began to get angry. The chief had never cared much for the old broad, having listened to her complaints about the money the police department received when it should be going to her precious library, but no old lady, no matter how sour she was, deserved to have her throat slit like a pig.
      Harris approached the chief. "Worthington said Jones was supposed to come in at nine. He hasn't heard from him."
      "Take Hayden with you and see if you can locate Jones," the chief said. "Ask Worthington for the address." Harris turned to leave. "And be careful, just in case Jones is our killer." Harris nodded and went down the stairs.
      Dimes finished and directed a couple of deputies to carry the body out. The chief stepped forward.
      "Well?" he asked.
      "Won't know anything for sure until I get it back to the morgue," Dimes said. "You know that. I can't think of how many times you've asked me for information before I've even had a chance to find anything out."
      "And I can't think how many times you've said that and then given me what I wanted," the chief said. "So give me what you've got."
      Their ritual completed, Dimes looked around and said, "Well, first thing, she wasn't killed here." He gestured at the floor. "Not enough blood. Of course, you've probably already figured that." At the chief's nod, he continued. "I'd guess she died around seven or eight this morning. I think the murder weapon is probably one of the those hunting knives that are serrated near the hilt because the cut is a bit ragged on the left side and a little skin is missing. I couldn't find any signs of bruising or any other wounds so unless something turns up in the autopsy, that's what killed her." Dimes paused. "That's about it."
      "Was she ..." The chief hesitated.
      "Raped?" Dimes frowned. "Don't think so. No signs, but I'll know for sure later. Do you have reason to think she was?"
"No, it's just in this day and age, you can never tell what kind of sick bastards are running around."
      "True enough," Dimes said. "Any suspects?"
      "Not really. The assistant librarian found her. He's the best so far, but I don't think so. No guts. He's been puking for the past hour."
      "I know Bernard. Met him at church," Dimes said. "Seems okay, though I've always wondered what a young man was doing as an librarian."
"I've been told librarians with a degree can make a pretty good living," the chief said.
      "So what's he doing here?" Dimes asked. "The city couldn't be paying him much."
      "It doesn't pay him. When Ryton gave this place to the city, he also left most of his money in a trust for the library. The City Council is also the Library Board, and they administer it. He probably makes more than both of us combined."
      Sims had walked up while the chief was talking and was waiting patiently. The chief motioned at him.
      "We've finished searching the place," Sims said. "All except the victim's office. It's locked, and he doesn't have a key. Otherwise, no signs of anything that shouldn't be here. No signs of a forced entry. We found nothing."
      "Were her keys on her body?" the chief asked Dimes.
      "No," Dimes answered. "In fact, she wasn't carrying anything except some tissues."
      The chief motioned to one of the other deputies. "Edwards, get a locksmith here and open that door."
      "Yes, sir." Edwards left.
      "You'd better stick around," the chief told Dimes. "She might have been killed in there." Dimes nodded and started gathering his equipment. The chief and Sims walked downstairs.
      "Anything missing?" the chief asked.
      "Not as far as Bimmer could tell," Sims replied.
      "Bimmer?"
      "Yeah, that's what we call Bernard because his initials are like the car ... B.M.W. And Bimmer's the car's nickname."
      The chief grunted. He had figured it was something dumb like that.
      "He's pretty shook up," Sims continued. "I sent him outside for some air."
      "You know him very well?"
      "I guess so," Sims said. "He used to play softball with me on the First Baptist team until he split up with Sherry Wyatt. I haven't seen him much lately. But, he seems like a good guy. Do you think he did it? You know, I always wondered why Sherry dumped him. Maybe she sensed --"
      "I don't think anything yet except that someone killed her and we have to find out who," the chief said, pointedly. "Get some men and look around the neighborhood. See if anyone saw or heard anything." The chief didn't hold much hope of finding any witnesses though. If Agatha had been killed in the library and at the time that Dimes thought, the businesses surrounding the library would have been closed. Still, they could get lucky.
      "Yes, sir," Sims said.
      "And tell Worthington to stay close. I'll want him here when we open her office."
      "Okay, and, Chief, City Records finally found a phone number for her next of kin," Sims said, handing the chief a piece of paper. "It was the only relative she had listed on her city health forms. It's her brother-in-law."
      The chief read the name. Richard Storer. It was an Oklahoma City phone number. "Well, I guess I'd better call him. Tell Worthington I'm going to use his office." He let the number ring several times, but no one answered. He hung up, reminding himself to try later. The chief sighed. He could already feel his ulcer churning. No suspects worth having. No clues. A big fat nothing. The City Council was going to love this.

End excerpt. Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.

      Hope things are going well for you. I miss spending time with you! Talk to you later.