For Rain

      Rain seems to be the biggest fan of Murder by Dewey Decimal. I think the excerpts have scared away most everyone else! So for Rain today, I'm posting excerpt 2.2. Lisa and Bernard go for a little drive with a terrible surprise at the end.

Excerpt 2.2 from Murder by Dewey Decimal
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.

      "My car or yours?" Lisa asked Bernard.
      "If you don't mind driving ..." Bernard said quietly.
      "No problem. I just hope nothing grabs you." Lisa opened the door to her faded Pinto and slid behind the wheel. "Let me clean off the seat." She grabbed the books and papers in the passenger seat and tossed them on the already large pile in her back seat. Bernard silently got in the car.
      She had convinced Bernard to telephone a pharmacy for anti-nausea medication, but he hadn't seemed in good enough shape to drive so she offered to take him. She needed some fresh air herself. So much for the reporter with nerves of steel, she thought.
      Bernard slumped in the seat. She felt sorry for him. He'd been through quite a shock today, and all in all, he was handling it fairly well, she thought.
      As she drove to the local Super Value Pharmacy, she worked on the lead paragraph of the story, stirring the facts around and deciding on their placement in the story. The chief had promised her a statement around one. She'd wait for that and then call the Dispatch and try to wrangle herself a job. She hoped John Veit remembered her.
      Thinking of the story reminded her of her recorder. She hated going back to Leonard's, but she wanted the confidence her recorder gave her. She decided to stop on the way back to the library.
      She glanced over at Bernard. "Are you okay?"
      "Yes," he said. "Thanks for taking me to the pharmacy. I guess you must think I'm a flake."
      "Why?"
      "Getting sick like this."
      "Not really," she said. "Lots of people get sick at the sight of blood. And finding her body would rattle anyone." She turned a corner. "Her office certainly doesn't make me feel too good, but I suppose I've got used to it somewhat."
      "How?"
      "I've covered several car wrecks that were pretty bad," she said. "After the first one, I was shaky for days. Gradually, I stopped thinking about it. The ones after that didn't seem to affect me the same way or at least for not as long. If you can understand that."
      "Yeah, I can," Bernard said, looking out the window. "Weirdly enough, I used to be an EMT."
      "Really?"
      "Yeah," Bernard said. "I wasn't always a librarian."
      "What happened? I mean, why did you stop being an EMT? Was it the blood?"
      "No," he said shortly. "That wasn't it. I wasn’t bothered by it. Then."
      They drove in silence for a few moments.
      "I wonder if there's going to be second murder," he said abruptly.
      Lisa glanced at him. Maybe being in the same car with him wasn't such a good idea. While her instincts said he was okay, they could be wrong. "What do you mean?"
      "I'm not sure, but it all seems so weird." Bernard shifted in his seat. "Why would someone want to kill her?"
      "Offhand, I'd guess just about anyone who met her. The murder suspects would form a double line."
      Bernard laughed. "No, seriously. Think about it. She's been a bitch for thirty years -- or so I've been told. Why would somebody decide to kill her now?"
      "Maybe they finally got fed up," Lisa stopped at a light. "Besides, robbery was probably the motive."
      "Now, that really bothers me. Theft of what?" Bernard asked. "I didn't even know the safe was there. What could be in there that was valuable enough to kill for?"
      "Money. Stocks. Bonds. Jewels."
      "I don't see how she could have much of anything."
      "I thought the library paid you pretty well."
      Bernard looked at her.
      "I remember from the story," she said.
      "Oh. Well, I guess they do. But she wasn't getting paid as much as me. The library board wanted to hire someone with a masters, and that doesn't come cheap. Actually, they wouldn't had enough to hire me except I was already planning to move here. She was always saying that if they hadn't hired me, they could have bought more books."
      "Maybe old man Ryton left her some money. He certainly seemed loaded." Lisa remembered being told that he made his money in the stock market. Or was it commodity market?
      "I don't think she would have worked at the library if she had money. She didn't like working," Bernard said.
      "All right. If it wasn't money in the safe, what was?"
      "Beats me. I'm just talking, trying to make some sense of this." He sighed. "I wonder if they've told her family yet."
      Lisa turned into the pharmacy parking lot. "I didn't know she had any."
      "I think a brother and maybe a sister. She didn't talk about them much. The brother lives in Oklahoma City. I think he has a bookstore there." He opened the door. "I'll be right back."
      She watched him enter the pharmacy. She hoped the medicine would help out. She had seen his obvious distress on the bench at the library and had immediately wanted to help, her reaction surprising her a bit. She enjoyed talking with him. He's a nice guy, she decided. And cute, too. Of course, I went to bed with Leonard Brewer, so what kind of taste could I have?
      Thinking of Leonard reminded of her purse again. She hoped he wasn't home. Just the idea of his leering grin made her feel ill. She looked in the mirror and winced at her reflection. No make-up, mussed hair, crumpled white sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, dark circles under her eyes -- Bernard probably thought she looked like she had been rode hard and put away wet. She rummaged in the glove compartment and found an old comb and a rubber band. She combed her long hair back into a pony tail and snapped the rubber band around it to hold it. A little better, but not much, she thought ruefully.
      Bernard startled her as he opened the car door.
      "That didn't take long," she said, starting the car.
      "It was ready," he said, taking a brown bottle out of a white bag and staring at the label. "Well, here goes." He drank a mouthful and made a face. "Nasty stuff."
      "Most medicine is. My dad used to say that they make it that way so people will think it's actually doing something."
      "That sounds about right," Bernard said. "Does your dad live here?"
      She paused. "He passed away five years ago."
      "I'm sorry," Bernard said.
      Lisa shook her head. "You didn't know. It's all right. My mother died of cancer a couple of years before he did. He took it hard. I've always thought he died of broken heart." No matter what other people say. "Where do your parents live?"
      "My mom lives in Edmond," Bernard said. "My dad passed away." He stared out the window. "Where are we going?"
      "I have to pick my purse up from a friend's house," Lisa said. "It won't take long."
      "Would I know her?"
      "I don't think so. And it's a him."
      "Oh."
      They rode in silence for a few moments. Lisa began to feel uncomfortable. "He's not a good friend. I really don't know him very well," she said. Not that I owe you any explanations. "He worked in the pressroom at the Journal."
      Bernard nodded and continued to stare out the window.
      Almost desperately, she asked, "Why do you think the murder is so weird?"
      "For one thing, I wonder where the murderer was taking the body," he said. "If she was killed in her office, why drag her body to the second floor?"
      "Maybe he was going to drop her out a window?"
      "Why not take her out the side door?"
      "Maybe he stabbed her, and she ran up there before she died."
      "Then why wasn't there blood everywhere? And something else. She was lying on her back with her hands at her side. If she fell, I don't think she would be so ... arranged. I think someone dragged her up there."
      "Why?" Lisa asked.
      "I don't know. I don't know why her office was trashed, I didn't know the safe was there, and I don't know what could have been in it. And to think I used to believe that I was fairly knowledgeable." He grinned.
      He had a nice smile. Sort of goofy and kind. Steady, girl, Lisa told herself. Stay on point. "Let's say whoever killed her knew what he was looking for but didn't know where it was. She wouldn't tell him at first so he trashed the place looking for it. She finally told him it was in the safe. He had her open it, and then he killed her so there wouldn't be any witnesses. Was the library broken into?"
      "No," he said, shaking his head. "Not that I could tell. All the windows and doors were intact."
      "Maybe she knew him well enough to let him in. Or maybe he picked her up at her house and forced her to go with him."
      "That would explain what she doing there so early if someone had forced her." Bernard paused. "I think she must have known him because he knew there was something valuable in the library. Whether or not he knew about the safe, he knew something was hidden there."
      "Or knew Agatha had something valuable to hide. Or thought she had something. Or thought the library had something. That's plenty of 'or's'," Lisa said with a grimace. "Of course, the murderer could be a woman."
      "I don't think so. Agatha probably weighed two-fifty. It'd take a fairly strong person to move that. And there are more strong men than women." Bernard rubbed his eyes. "I wish I had my contact solution with me."
      "You wear contacts?"
      "Yes. I'm near-sighted." He massaged his neck. "The whole thing just doesn't make any sense."
      "Probably it will turn out to be really simple," Lisa said. "It just looks weird because we don't know what happened." She pulled into the parking lot of an apartment building. "This won't take long."
      As she walked up the steps, she noticed Leonard's car was parked in the lot. Great, she thought, the slug is here. Oh, what a wonderful day. If he says anything, I swear I'll kill him.
      She knocked on his door. No answer. He might still be sleeping off last night, she thought hopefully. When she tried the knob, the door opened. She stepped inside. If luck was with her, she could grab her purse and be out before Leonard noticed her.
      Lisa had often been teased about her purse. It was huge and always crammed full of make-up, pencils, notepads, her recorder, some tapes, a couple of screwdrivers, and just about anything else she needed or thought she would need. It functioned as her supply room and security blanket. If she hadn't been so depressed this morning, she wouldn't have forgotten it. And now it was lying on the couch with its myriad contents spilled on the floor.
      "You, jerk!" she shouted. "Going through my purse --"
      Striding across the room, she flung open the bedroom door. "Leonard, I don't know what you thought you were doing, but let me tell you --"
      He lay on his back by the unmade bed, a knife buried to the hilt in his chest.
      All Lisa could think about was that he couldn't tell anyone she had spent the night with him. She would have to do that now.

End excerpt. Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.