THE NEXT MORNING STARTED OFF AS MOST mornings did, except I kept wondering whether or not I could open the library and whether Junebug still considered me a prime suspect. I fixed breakfast for Mama and Mark and checked on Sister; she snored in her room, worn from an evening of cooking up homestyle food for wayfarers.

I’m not nearly as good a cook as Sister, but Mama and Mark didn’t complain. Course it’s hard to mess up toaster waffles and Rice Krispies, but I do pride myself on my ability to coordinate every part of the meal so it reaches the table simultaneously.

Junebug didn’t disappoint. He showed up about eight-thirty and I was glad to see that Billy Ray wasn’t in tow.

“Hey, Jordy. Good morning,” Junebug held his Stetson in his hands, as if sparking Sister rather than grilling me.

“Good morning, Chief Moncrief.” I kept my tone formal. He frowned.

“I’d like to speak with you for a minute, Jordy.”

“Don’t you need a backup, Chief? After all, I’m a dangerous suspect.”

“Come on, Jordy,” he sounded like the Junebug of old, asking for his baseball back when we’d disagreed about a hit being foul. “Quit being pissy about this. I got a job to do. I’m not here to arrest you.”

I relented. “I just made some coffee. Come on in.”

He came awkwardly into the kitchen, watching Mama. “Good morning, Miz Poteet, Mark. How y’all doing?”

Mama stared at Junebug, as if she feared he might be here to escort her to a nursing home. She smiled cautiously in his direction.

Mark once again put himself first. “I already told you what I know, Chief,” he said, sounding like a prepubescent version of a Bogart-movie thug.

Junebug regarded Mark critically. “Yes, son, I know. Thanks again for your cooperation. I’m here to see your uncle, though. Would y’all mind giving us some privacy?”

“Mark, please take Mama upstairs. Then go outside and play,” I said. Do thirteen-year-olds still play?

Mark’s eyes widened like drops of ink in water. “Are you going to arrest him?”

“No, son. Good to see you again, Miz Poteet.” Junebug nodded politely at Mama as Mark escorted her out of the kitchen.

I poured Junebug black coffee and set it before him. I decided to act like what I was, just a bystander to all these nasty little events. “So when can I reopen the library?”

“Not today,” he said in his slow voice, sipping the brew. His blue eyes flicked at me. “You make good coffee.”

I sipped my own in response. “Is that what you came by to tell me, that the library has to stay closed? You could have phoned.”

He set the mug down. “Jordy, I think Beta might’ve been in the library to burn it down.”

I felt the heat of the mug in my hands, but it paled next to the heat in my face. Burn the library? Bum my library?

Junebug read my expression. “I didn’t get into this with you before, because we didn’t know. Her fingers smelled of gasoline, and the coroner found traces of gasoline on her clothes. And there was a pack of matches in her skirt pocket.”

“Did you find gas cans?” My voice sounded stunned.

“In her car. It was parked down the street from the library. Found it there yesterday.”

“Not enough that she tried to ban books. Not enough that she threatened to shut the library down. No, if she couldn’t have her way, she’d just torch it. Even the many books she didn’t object to, just to get rid of the few.” I jumped up from my chair and paced the kitchen madly.

“She didn’t threaten to burn the place down to you?” Junebug asked in his relaxed drawl.

“Never.” I stopped. “You know I would have reported any such threat to you. I’d have had you and the volunteer fire department on twenty-four-hour alert. And I’d have had Billy Ray throw a book she couldn’t burn at her skinny butt.”

“Unless you decided to stop her yourself.” He said it as casually as if he were reading a high-school football score from the paper.

I felt my lips tighten. “You know I wouldn’t kill her. There’d be no reason for me to. You’re the law. I would have come to you.”

“I think you would have, too,” Junebug said. “But that’s not how Billy Ray sees it. He figures—”

“Billy Ray couldn’t figure if you gave him both sides of the flash card,” I interrupted.

“—that if you knew she might try something like that; but you didn’t have solid proof, you might just take it into your head to guard the library. Maybe keep a bat handy. A bat that has only your prints on it.”

Only my prints. I gulped, but pressed on. “Does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me? Tell Billy Ray to unknot his lariat from around his ankles and try throwing again. Instead of dreaming up little scenarios between me and Beta, why doesn’t he get busy finding out about that money in her account? Or why Bob Don had such a fight with her last week? Or why she accused Ruth Wills of trying to poison her? Or why Eula Mae was meeting her late at night last week? Or why she bothered to make that list in the first place?” I stopped. “Or why only my prints are on that bat? If some kid just left it in the lot, it’d have to have his prints on it, too. Right?”

Junebug’s jaw wavered. “How the hell—”

Open mouth, do not insert foot because of torrent of words that pour out in temper. I sat down quickly. A model schoolboy.

“I guess you’ve been checking up on folks,” he said sternly. A model principal. “That’s my job, Jordy. Mine and Billy Ray’s.”

“Well, do your job, Hewett.” He’s not real crazy about being called by that name. How inconsiderate of me. “You know in your heart that I didn’t murder anybody. You know I couldn’t. Get that schnauzer of a lawyer off of me.”

The front door creaked and it wasn’t a schnauzer of a lawyer that came in. It was a chihuahua of a lawyer, little and hairless. Bidwell J. Poteet, attorney-at-law. My beloved uncle Bid. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, resplendent in his small-town lawyer’s light gray suit, smoking an obnoxious cigarillo. It fit him. He was short, like my father had been, and he’d lost most of his hair. What little remained was scraggly and white. A soul less charitable than myself would’ve said it looked like cat mange. His eyes were a deep lake blue, but icy and cool. The stub of that cigarillo popped out of his thin lips and his raspy drawl pervaded the room like the nauseating smell of the smoke.

“I hope you’re not trying to intimidate my client, Chief,” Uncle Bid wheedled. “He ought to have my representation if you’re trying to coax a confession out of him.”

Junebug frowned. “This isn’t an interrogation, Mr. Poteet. Jordy and I are just talking.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, sir.” Uncle Bid sat in the chair. He blinked at me, like a troll at a billy goat gruff. “Aren’t you going to be hospitable and offer your poor old uncle some coffee?”

Soon as I find the rat poison for it, I thought, getting up and slopping coffee into a cup. “Your sister-in-law is doing fine, thank you for asking,” I announced.

Bid made a hoarse reply that lacked concern. He’d done nothing to try to help Mama, the wife of his older brother. He’d dropped by only once before since I’d moved home, just to explain what an idiot I was to return to Mirabeau—and grieve that Daddy was spinning from his grave all the way to China on account of my giving up my career. Feel the love?

“Mr. Poteet, let me assure you that I wasn’t questioning Jordy. We were simply discussing when he could reopen the library. It is a crime scene, you know, and we can’t run the risk of tampering there,” Junebug said.

Bid sucked down boiling-hot coffee as if it was ice water. Those cigarillos must build up the scar tissue fast. “Well, then, if you two have concluded your business, I’d like to speak privately with my nephew.”

Junebug arched an eyebrow, but didn’t argue. “Yes, we are finished, I believe. Jordy, I’ll let you know when you can reopen.” I nodded mutely and escorted Junebug to the door.

He paused on the porch as he adjusted his hat and blinked into the morning sunshine. “It’s a nice day. Why don’t you spend it with your mother? Take her out to the park or out to lunch?”

“I have other plans, Junebug.”

“Remember, Jordy, I’m the law. I’ll handle the investigating around here. And one thing I might have to investigate is how you knew about that money in Beta Harcher’s account.”

I didn’t want to get Candace in trouble for sneaking around bank-record confidentiality. But I didn’t want to lie to a police officer either. Best to take the blunderbuss approach. “Have you found where all that money came from?”

“No, we haven’t,” he confessed. “You know anything about it?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Will wonders never cease? I’ll see you later, Jordy.” Junebug smiled at me, set his hat to his liking, and headed for his cruiser.

I went back into the kitchen. Uncle Bid leaned against the open refrigerator, his bald head surveying the shelves up close.

“Breakfast service is closed,” I quipped. “If you want the special thrill of having a relative cook for you, wait till Sister wakes up. I’m sure she’ll whip up your favorite. And get that smelly cigar out of the fridge. And out of the house. But there’s no need to spit it out. Just let your lips follow.”

He slammed the door shut and rubbed an apple on his lapel. “You’d shame my brother, talking to me that way.” He could invoke a father’s ghost faster than Hamlet.

“No, he’d be ashamed of how you’ve ignored Mama. You never call. You never come by unless it’s to offer less-than-constructive criticism. Your absence is a blessing to me, though, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.”

“I’m concerned about you, Jordy, and I’m here to help. You need my representation. I’ve just had me a fascinating conversation with Billy Ray Bummel.” He bit into the apple and chomped noisily. That didn’t keep him from talking. “Let’s look at the facts, boy. Beta Harcher popped you one and threatened you in front of a library full of witnesses. You were in the library, by y’own admission, in the range of time the murder took place. If she was going to burn down the library, that was an immediate threat not only to you but to the only employment that you are remotely suited for in this town—aside from village idiot. And only your prints are on the murder weapon. Now do you still think you don’t need my help?”

“I’ll get my own legal representation, thank you.”

The phone rang. I scooped it up, willing to chitchat with an obscene caller rather than Bid. It was Candace.

“Glad to see you’re home. I waited last night for your call.”

Oops. I’d been so wrapped up in pulling my thoughts together and writing out my notes I’d forgotten my promise to phone Candace.

“Sorry,” I said. “Look, this isn’t a good time. Can I call you back?”

“As long as you’re not fixing breakfast for Ruth Wills.” It might’ve sounded mean if she hadn’t laughed.

“I’m not. Talk to you in a minute.” I hung up and turned back to Bid. He munched the apple down to the core. I kept hoping there was a seed or two he might choke on.

“I’m offering you free legal representation, just as soon as you’re arrested,” he said, wiping his mouth with a dainty, monogrammed handkerchief.

“I’m not going to be arrested. If they had anything on me, they’d have arrested me by now.” I said it with more conviction than I felt. “And even if they do, I’ll get me a good attorney, someone over in Bavary who actually hasn’t been investigated by the state bar.”

Bid shrugged away the history of his luminous career. “And how will you afford it, Jordy? With your stellar librarian’s salary?” He got up and thumbed his cigarillo stub into the trash. “You don’t have the money to spend on legal defense. And trust me, you don’t want a public defender. Bonaparte County’s recruiting from the very dregs of the dreggiest of law schools.”

“I’ll take my chances, thank you. I’m sure any public defender would do a more conscientious job for me than you would. You’ve never given a crap about me or my family. You always acted superior because you had all the education and Daddy didn’t. Well, I’ve got an education now, Uncle Bid. But I didn’t need that to see that you’re just an uncaring, selfish bastard.”

His bony, ugly face (thank God I didn’t favor the Poteet side) screwed up in anger. He turned red. “You listen to me, boy. I will represent you. You are kin and I will not have the Poteet name disgraced. I will not entrust your defense to some wet-eared kid straight out of school. There’s too much at stake—”

“Too much what?” I crossed my arms and smiled. “You’ve never offered to do anything that you didn’t get a ton of benefit from.”

He fished another cigarillo from his pocket and lit it in a fluid motion. He took his time, making the end of the nasty thing glow with each suck of whispered breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was sulky but reasonable.

“Jordy. I know we’ve had our differences. I know I haven’t been”—his face screwed up as he breathed in smoke, making him look like a little dragon—“the best uncle to you and Arlene. I’ve been remiss in my duties to your poor mother. I’m asking for a chance to help you.” He laid his palms up in mock surrender. “Please, let me help you if the worst happens and you get charged with Beta’s murder.”

I watched him. He acted sincere. Acted. I’d had enough experience with him to avoid embracing him and sobbing that all was forgiven. But maybe the old coot was genuine this time.

“Please,” he said once more.

I loved hearing him beg, but I wanted him gone more. “Tell you what, Uncle Bid. If I do get arrested, I’ll retain your free services. Until then, we won’t have any sort of formal agreement. Deal?”

He didn’t look entirely pleased, but he’d honed his ways of hiding disappointment through his many failures in the courtroom. He came forward and shook my hand. His was sticky with apple juice. “Deal, then, Jordy.” He relinquished my hand and tried a new buddying-up tactic. “Although I remain staunchly convinced of your innocence, it wouldn’t surprise me that you could’ve killed that woman. Crazy old bitch. Waste of what was once fine womanhood.”

“You knew Beta?” I asked, wishing I could wipe my palm.

“I wasn’t on speaking terms with her,” Bid offered congenially, “but I knew her when she was younger. An eye-popper, that girl was. And knew how to have a good time.” Uncle Bid thoughtfully gyrated his pelvis so I wouldn’t miss his point. Beta? Bob Don had said she didn’t get religion until she was in her twenties. What kind of woman was she before then? Bob Don’s description of wild had been vague.

“You and Beta?” I asked, incredulous. Imagining oddities from the Kama Sutra was easier than conjuring up an image of my uncle and Beta Harcher coupling.

“Oh, Lord, no, Jordy. I never dated her. I wouldn’t have soiled my reputation by doing so. Funny how people turn out, though. Such a wild thing in her youth, then such a dried-up old church hag.” He shook his head.

“Bob Don said she was pretty when she was younger.”

Bid frowned. “You stay away from Bob Don Goertz. He’s nothing but a dirty liar.” God only knew what brought that on. I didn’t know Bid and Bob Don knew each other.

“I’ll be going. Remember what I said, and you call me if you run into trouble. Give my best to Arlene, Mark, and your mother.”

I nodded, not wanting to argue again. Beta Harcher, party girl turned keeper of morality. I wondered if Uncle Bid was trying to make his own metamorphosis.

Candace had nothing new to report. I told her about Ruth witnessing the fight between Bob Don and Beta, didn’t mention Ruth’s offer of sexual solace, and concluded by telling her that apparently my prints were the only ones on the baseball bat. At the last tidbit, she gasped.

“My God! Maybe they will arrest you.”

“I don’t know. It seems odd that I would have the only prints on it. Say the killer wore gloves. If a kid left it in the field, it should also have his or her prints. Why doesn’t it?”

“The killer wiped it clean,” Candace prompted.

“And missed my prints? I don’t think so. I was the only person to handle that bat when it came into the library.” I closed my eyes, remembering. “I brought the bat into the library. I put it in my office. No one else went near it, until the killer used it to bash Beta.”

“The only explanation,” Candace said slowly, “is that it was wiped before you handled it. A kid wouldn’t do that; there’s no reason to. Unless—” she stopped.

“What?”

“Oh, God. Unless the killer planted it there, already wiped clean of prints, and waited for you to pick it up.”

“That’s crazy, Candace,” I coughed. “Doesn’t that seem like putting a lot up to chance? That I’m the first person to walk by the bat, that I notice it, that I pick it up, that I even take that path at any given time of the day?”

“Jordy,” Candace’s tone was flat. “You’re far more a creature of habit than you realize. You always cut through the field on your way to the pharmacy.”

“Yeah, but I don’t go to the pharmacy on a regular basis. Whenever Mama needs her medicine.”

“Maybe the killer knew when that would be. When you’d be going next.”

“My God!” I exclaimed. Pictures unraveled in my mind, like a grainy, old-time newsreel. “You’re onto something, Candace. Imagine you’re the killer. You want to frame me for this murder. You want to get my prints on the murder weapon. You want to put me at the scene of the crime near the time of the murder, or you want to kill Beta Harcher at a place where only I—and possibly a few others, including you—have access. You can’t use a conventional weapon like a gun or a knife, because how could you explain getting me to touch it? ‘Please leave your prints on that registered weapon, Jordy, and I’ll be on my way.’ So you decide to use as your weapon something I might handle. But there’s nothing in the library that’s lethal enough. I don’t have a heavy paperweight on my desk. I don’t have an antique sword hanging over the card catalog. But there is a softball field right by the library. So you decide to use a baseball bat. You know—or learn—that I cut through the softball field when I head toward the pharmacy or downtown in general. So you find out when I’m planning on going to the pharmacy, watch me leave, then leave the bat there on the path for me to find when I return. If I pick it up, you’re set. If I don’t, maybe you have an alternate plan.”

Candace sighed on the other end of the line. “A lot of ifs there.”

I clutched the phone in excitement. “But say it’s true. That could narrow the field down even further. Who would know that Mama needed her prescription refilled and that I would go down the path that day?”

“Maybe that’s not the key,” Candace suggested. “Maybe they just were in the library when you left to go to the pharmacy and then put the bat out for you to find when you got back. Maybe your mother’s medicine had nothing to do with it.”

Leave it to Candace to make simplifying conclusions. Simple seemed better. “Okay, let’s take that tack. So who was around that morning?”

Candace hummed slightly on the other line. “Let’s see. You. Me. Old Man Renfro, of course—he’s always there. Eula Mae and her lot were just starting to arrive when you left.” She harrumphed. “Ruth Wills was there, looking up something. Probably home cures for venereal disease.” She paused. “Tamma Hufnagel—no, she came in after you got back, right when the fight started with you and Beta.”

“Maybe she was outside the library and saw me go.”

“Maybe so. And maybe anyone else could’ve been too,” Candace agreed. “Bob Don came in to return a book that his wife’d checked out. There was a whiskey spill on one page and he offered to buy the book. That was about ten minutes before you left. I took care of it.”

“Bob Don again,” I said. “His name pops up more than a jack-in-the-box.”

“There were a few others at the library. Older folks. That nerdy Gaston Leach. I can’t imagine any of them as Beta’s killer.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I’ve got to go, Candace. I’ve got some folks to see. I’m afraid that Junebug knows that we know about Beta’s deposit. It kind of slipped out this morning.”

She sighed, disappointed in me. “Oh, well. Mother will just have to forgive me. After all, it’s for a worthy cause. Saving your butt.”

  As soon as Sister was awake, I told her about Junebug’s visit, Uncle Bid’s offer, and my theory about the murder weapon.

“Uncle Bid? Being nice?” She wiped sleep from her eyes as I sat on the corner of her bed. “I’m fast asleep, right?”

“Nope. And I’m not working today. The library’s still closed.”

She blinked green eyes at me, rimmed with dark. Those eyes said she’d been working too much. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not going to volunteer to stay home with Mama?”

“There’s some people I’ve got to see.”

“Look, Jordy. You’re trying to clear yourself before they’ve even arrested you—”

“How would I clear my name from a jail cell? I wouldn’t count on Uncle Bid to hire a decent private investigator. I’ve got to do this now, prove I’m innocent.” I leaned back on the bed. “I called Dorcas Witherspoon. She said she’d stay with Mama if you needed to run errands.”

“Okay.” Sister knotted the sheets around her. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt that said RICE UNIVERSITY. God, I’d given that to her my senior year in college and she still slept in it. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe anyone thinks you’re a killer.”

“I have you on my side, though. And Candace.”

Sister squeezed my hand. It was the first legitimate sign of affection she’d shown me in weeks. I think we were both just too tired to bother most of the time, too caught up in feeling sorry for ourselves, too worn down from dealing with Mama, too frustrated at our own powerlessness in the face of her disease. We’d been close once. I wanted to be close to her again.

I offered to bring her some coffee in bed and she giggled. “You?” she asked.

I drew myself up to my full height “I too can be sensitive and caring. We just got a book about it at the library.”

I brought her milky coffee, the way she liked it. She sipped it as daintily as an English lady being gently roused in the morning by a roomful of servants. I told her about my dinner with Ruth and what I’d found out yesterday. She listened for once, and did not interrupt me. A rarity for my big sister.

When I was done, Sister finished her coffee before she spoke. “Well, I can fill in one gap. Bob Don did used to be friends with Mama and Daddy.”

“When?”

“Oh, when I was real little. Before you were born. He came over quite a bit. I remember he loved to toss me up in the air and catch me. I’d squeal everybody deaf. And he and Mama and Daddy played cards some evenings, I remember that. But he and Mama and Daddy had some big falling out. I think it was over him marrying that nasty Gretchen. I don’t think Mama and Daddy liked being around her. She’s a real bitch.”

“Candace says that Bob Don returned a library book that’d had booze spilled on it.”

Sister huffed. “Then she’s also a real drunk bitch. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Have you ever seen that woman, Jordy? Course she doesn’t get out like she used to. But I know a drunk when I see one. She must just be getting worse and worse. Poor Bob Don. Maybe he really does want to help, make up for the rift between him and Daddy and Mama.”

“Maybe so,” I said thoughtfully.

I offered to make Sister some breakfast, but she said she’d get her own. (She wasn’t willing to take a chance on my cooking.) So I got on with my work. There were people to see and stories to be checked out. I decided to strike close to home first.

The Bavary/Mirabeau phone book listed three families named Hart. I got lucky the second time around. The lady who answered had a daughter named Chelsea.

“May I ask why you want to speak with her?” the woman asked. Her voice was nasal but polite.

I fidgeted. “Actually, she’s dating my cousin, Hally Schneider. I thought she might assist me in planning a surprise party for him.” I couldn’t think of anything else and hoped that I wouldn’t actually have to plan a social function for a teenager to cover my tracks.

The woman warmed. “Oh, yes, Hally and Chelsea did go out the other night. Such a handsome young man.” Her voice faltered. “I—I didn’t know that he was really interested in Chelsea.”

“Oh, talks about her constantly,” I chirped. Well, he’d mentioned her once. That counted for something. Mrs. Hart directed me to LuAnne’s Bäckerei, a little German bakery in downtown Mirabeau. I thanked her and hung up. I could stop off and chat with Chelsea on my way to see Reverend Hufnagel, Bob Don Goertz, and Eula Mae. And when I got back, down-the-street neighbor Janice Schneider and I were going to have a little heart-to-heart as well.