“Nah. She never says much of anything about herself, haven’t you noticed? Before I took this job I made it a point to find out everything I could about Carlisle and its employees. Always do as much of a recon as you can before going into a situation.”

  “Bet you didn’t see you were getting into something like this.”

  He shook his head. “Sure didn’t. Who would have thought there would be so much sturm und drang over an old charm school’s records?”

  “Has Horowicz done anything about protecting the vault? Maybe stationing a policeman down there?”

  “You’re kidding. He was gone as soon as the crime scene people were. I think he’s claustrophobic.”

  “But he won’t let us bring the records upstairs... Tanner, they’re at risk. Who’s to say whoever these people are won’t come back for them if they didn’t find what they wanted? Or burn the place down so we’ll never know if they took anything?” The thought of the library, which I was quite coming to like, and all those books being reduced to piles of fluttering ash made me nauseated.

  “I do. After we left the tunnel I went over to the maintenance building and got stuff to barricade that door. Horowicz didn’t like it, but I put up a crossbar that will stop anything short of a tank.”

  “Mr. Tanner, I think you’re wonderful.”

  He grinned. “I do too.”

  I started to laugh just as my phone started to jangle its pointy little tune. At least I had finally changed the ringtone from the emotionally charged La Marseillaise.”

  Mother. Oh no.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I have to take this.”

  “Are you home?” Mother asked anxiously.

  “Mother, I’ll have to call you back. I’m in a meeting now.”

  “You’re still there? It’s almost night.”

  I ground my teeth. In Dallas in summer it stayed light until nine o’clock and it was nowhere near that now.

  “Mindy, I’m so worried about you being in that horrible place. You could be the next woman attacked!”

  “That’s not going to happen. I really do have to go now.”

  One of Mother’s eloquent sighs almost blasted my eardrum. “I wish you would leave now and go home. Or why don’t you just come straight here? That way I will know you’re all right and I can keep you safe. I’ll fix your favorite meatloaf for dinner.”

  “Good-bye, Mother. I’ll call you tonight.” I ended the call and, for good measure, turned the phone off. I would probably pay for that later, but at least I didn’t have to deal with it now.

  Tanner was looking at me, his bright blue eyes piercing and probably seeing much too much. It made me uncomfortable, as if he could see right down to my skin.

  “Your mother must be a widow.”

  “Yes. Almost twenty years now.”

  “And you’re an only child.”

  “Might as well be. My big brother joined the Army right out of college and hasn’t been around much since. He’s just come back from being posted somewhere in the Middle East.”

  “Leaving you to deal with your mother. What did she do when you married?”

  “Just the same as she did before I married,” I said, then added with more fervor than the subject warranted, “I’m divorcing my husband and have no intentions of marrying again. Didn’t you find out about all this while you were looking into working for Carlisle?”

  He shrugged as if it were of no import. “You aren’t a Carlisle employee, so there was nothing on you, other than you’re a recognized researcher for Darryl Knedsyn and you’ve been cleared to use the McCallum archives. I haven’t read your security report. How’d you become a researcher?”

  I shrugged. That was no secret. “I needed a job and I’m not trained for much of anything. This I could do. My soon-to-be-ex-husband is being difficult about money. Darryl offered me the chance to work for him, so I took it.”

  “Have you found anything that might explain why this Gough woman was attacked in the McCallum archives?”

  The specter of Michelline Gough being mistaken for me (by whom?) rose, but I beat it down, but the ugly idea refused to die. If anything, it had grown stronger ever since I realized that an aspiring politician whose wife had died might be a much more acceptable candidate than one whose wife had divorced him very publicly for infidelity. Not that I really suspected Jed – he simply didn’t have the guts for such a drastic move – but his slick, driven and unhealthily political handlers disliked me almost as much as I disliked them.

  I yanked my mind back to the present. “No. None at all. Of course, there are lots of boxes down there I haven’t even looked in yet, so there’s no telling what’s in them, but I really can’t see a straight-arrow old dinosaur like Eudora McCallum doing anything that would interest a sensationalist hack like Michelline Gough.”

  “One of her students maybe?”

  “Possibly, but all the ones I’ve been able to track seem to have carried on the McCallum legacy by never folding a napkin wrong or mistaking a fish knife for a master butter.”

  “Good God,” he muttered incredulously. “People really care about things like that?”

  “The charmettes sure did. The curriculum barely changed over all the years the school was open. Apparently proper social knowledge was very important to people in that rarified socio-economic group,” I said a little bitterly, remembering all the times I had served Jed and Tony dinner prepared from a box with paper towels for napkins. Maybe Madeline had had a reason for disliking me so. In her eyes, at least.

  “At least times have changed,” he said, draining his tea glass.

  “Maybe not as much as you think,” I countered and slid from the booth. “Thank you for the tea and conversation. At least I’ll be calmer when Horowicz comes to arrest me.”

  “He won’t do that,” he said and I couldn’t help but wonder how he could be so certain. “Take care of yourself, and be careful driving home.”

  We didn’t say anything until we were back at my car, but he did wait until I was inside, properly belted and the engine started before he walked off.

  * * *

  If nothing else, I was well trained. After a few minutes of simply appreciating the quiet, I changed into comfy – and unquestionably ratty – shorts and a tee then poured a big glass of iced tea before turning on my phone.

  Mother had only called twice, but her voice was tighter and more stressed with each call.

  “Oh, you’re all right! I was so worried. You wouldn’t answer and you took so long to get home...” The words spilled out of her, punctuated with sobbing little sighs.

  “It hasn’t been that long, Mother, and I turned off the phone because I was in a meeting and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “So you care more about the feelings of those strangers than you do about worrying your mother to death?”

  I just couldn’t win.

  “This was about my job, Mother. It was work. And it’s still light out, and no one tried to kidnap or attack me.”

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t! They’re probably just lulling you into a sense of false security. I tell you, you’re trying to kill me. Why won’t you quit that job and move home? You won’t have to work then, and I’ll know you’re safe.”

  “Because I don’t want to, Mother,” I said with unusual brutality. “I like working. I like my job. What could I do there? I’d sit around with you and we’d do nothing but watch your soaps all day.”

  Smiles wreathed her voice. “I know. It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? I don’t see why you won’t...”

  “I have to go, Mother. I need to fix me some dinner.”

  “If you lived here I’d have dinner ready for you every night and you wouldn’t have to cook at all.”

  I am not a good cook. I not only don’t like to cook, I positively dislike cooking. It’s such a waste of time – you work, you fix, you eat, then it’s all gone and you have to wash the dishes. I sighed. Not even the lure of never having to cook again could tempt me into moving home.

  “Good-bye, Mother. I love you. I’ll call you tomorrow,” I added, vainly hoping that it would put off yet another call from her tonight.

  It wouldn’t, of course. Her latest thing was to call me just about bedtime – her bedtime, of course, and what she thought should be my bedtime as well – to make sure I was safely tucked in and not out gallivanting around. This was a new twist; when I had lived with Jed most nights she only called once, rarely twice. Since I had moved out, though, it wasn’t unusual for her to call three or four times in an evening. I had been hopeful that it would pass, but when I had tried to wean her away by turning off the phone she had called the police to come check on me. Twice. It had not been pleasant.

  Sighing, I made myself two sandwiches – one for dinner and one for lunch tomorrow – and heated up a cup of soup then went to the computer, eating while I surfed the net.

  I read as much as I could about Michelline Gough, which wasn’t much, even though the woman had a Wikipedia entry. Darryl had been right; no one seemed to like her. Her few interviews were thinly disguised hatchet jobs and the reviews on her books were scathing, but her Amazon ratings were quite good, so apparently a lot of somebodies liked her books.

  Then I started digging into the county tax records. There had to be something there about who owned the college buildings. And there was, but it didn’t tell me anything. In 1972 ownership had been passed from Miss Eudora McCallum (femme sole) to a trust called Ravenstovo. The taxes had been paid every year. No amount of searching online could discover any other mention of Ravenstovo in any capacity.

  Miss McCallum had not died until 1983, so presumably she had to know about this Ravenstovo, whatever it was. Unless she had been non compos mentis, or been forced into...

  That was silly. I had watched one too many overwrought TV shows. I stretched and turned off the computer. It wasn’t late – barely nine – but I was exhausted. Maybe I should just go to bed and get some rest. It had been an exhausting day, both physically and mentally.

  Face cleaned and moisturized, teeth brushed, nightgown on, I was just ready to step into bed when my phone rang. Stifling a spurt of anger, I picked it up. What on earth was Mother upset about now?

  It wasn’t Mother.

  “Ms. McMann, this is Tanner.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Tanner. How can I help you?”

  “I thought you should know that Michelline Gough died about twenty minutes ago. She never regained consciousness.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I was late to work the next morning, not that it made any real difference. I was on the honor system with Darryl for hours worked, and there certainly wasn’t anyone keeping tabs on me at the library – that I knew about! It was just that I couldn’t get myself moving. I lingered over coffee, was dilatory about getting dressed, took the long way to the library. Even then I sat in the car with the air conditioner running for a while.

  It wasn’t that I was afraid... well, maybe a little. Having someone who could physically resemble you be murdered in a place where you worked was unnerving, to say the least. But who was supposed to be the victim? Michelline Gough or me? Who would want to kill either one of us?

  And why?

  Finally at a little after eleven I pulled on my metaphoric big girl panties and headed to work. The campus drowsed in the heat; little waves were rising off the concrete walks and the drone of cicadas filled the air.

  “You’re finally here!” Sophronsiba chirped, looking up from the front desk. “I was starting to worry about you.”

  I forced a smile. “No need. I’m just moving a little slow this morning.”

  “You heard about the Gough woman?”

  “Yes. It’s tragic. Any news about why she was attacked? Or who did it?”

  Sophronsiba shook her head, but although she tried to keep her expression suitably somber her eyes danced. I tried to picture this pierced, peacock-colored, improbably dressed child (rising thirty? impossible!) as a multi-degreed academic or, even more improbably, flying jet planes and I simply couldn’t.

  “Come on upstairs,” she was saying as she handed me my keys. “I want to show you something.”

  Oh, lord... what had happened now? My mind filled with all kinds of potential horrors as I followed her up to my office and unlocked the door. Fire? An acid attack? Another dead body?

  Whatever I thought was nothing compared to what was in the room.

  The room was small to begin with, and now it was miniscule. Boxes were stacked five and six high wherever they would fit, making the small window appear deep set in a thick wall. My table had been jammed against the inner wall and was lined with boxes both on it and under it. Even my chair held a box.

  At first I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume, but when I really looked at the boxes my heart almost stopped.

  “The McCallum archives!”

  Sophronsiba was unabashedly grinning. “Yep. Horowicz called just before I left last night and said that we could move the archives. Apparently President Lampman was very busy last night.” She looked so smug all she needed was a yellow feather on her mouth to be the psychedelic cat that ate the canary. “Anyway, I called Tanner and this morning we moved everything we could up here.”

  “You should have called me! I would have helped... I can carry boxes!”

  “Don’t worry – you’re going to have enough to do straightening this mess out. The loose papers we just dumped in a box. Don’t worry – we labeled it, but you’ll have to put them where they belong. And the ones that got – dirty – aren’t here. The president called in Dr. Christiansen to clean them. He’s head of the art department and knows a lot about restoration and conservation. If we need a professional restorer, we’ll get one.”

  “Won’t that be expensive?” I asked in awe.

  Her face turned serious. “Those papers were entrusted to the college. We are responsible for them, and they were damaged in our vault. We have to get them restored as well as possible. I don’t know if we can bring them back to the way they were - they were awfully messy - but we’ll do the best that can be done.” With a conscious effort she shook off her seriousness, her goofy grin coming back. “Besides, Tanner and I thought you needed some consideration after finding that woman and everything.”

  I am not necessarily an emotional woman, but tears rose in my eyes. “Thank you. And thank Tanner, too. Is he around?”

  Sophronsiba shrugged. “Somewhere. He said something about checking locks in all the buildings.”

  “Will you get in trouble about this?” I gestured toward the boxes.

  “Nah. I told old Lampman what I was going to do, and he was cool with it. He also agreed that they were probably safer here than down in the vault. You see, the library is alarmed. The vault isn’t. Of course, we thought that you could get into the vault only through the library, and that was proved wrong.” She shrugged.

  “What about everything else down there?” Drawn by the boxes, I took the lid off the closest one. It was full of old-fashioned lined notebooks with black and white marbled cardboard covers, the kind some teachers made students use for exams. Had Miss McCallum saved all her students’ final exams? Did Miss McCallum’s College of Charm even have exams? I pulled my attention away with an effort. “I know there’s some really valuable stuff down there.”

  “But it’s only the McCallum stuff that’s drawn the attention. Besides, Tanner said he’d blockaded the secret door so no one could get in.”

  “Yeah,” I said unwisely, instantly fascinated by pulling open another box. This appeared to be full of yearbooks. “He told me.”

  Sophronsiba’s grin was an almost obscene parody of parental pride. “He told me you two had gone out for a drink.”

  “It was iced tea and a chat. Nothing.”

  “He’s never taken me for iced tea.” If anything her grin grew wider.

  “Stop looking like that,” I snapped with more energy than the situation deserved. “We’re both married.”

  “Yeah, and you’re both divorcing. Nothing has to happen immediately.” The head librarian’s expression said the exact opposite. One yellow feather? A whole canary’s worth!

  “Sophronsiba! Now get out of here and let me start to work.”

  Giggling like a naughty teenager she ran from the room. I could hear her chortling all the way down the stairs.

  After a quick dash to put my lunch in the tiny break room refrigerator I locked the door to my office behind me and looked around. Before I could do any research in a rational, organized manner there would have to be some straightening done. Down in the vault I had been starting with the boxes I could reach; of course, I hadn’t been down there more than a couple of days. Now I could afford the luxury of organization. If I did it quickly.

  Other than a few minutes for lunch, I worked without pause, and I mean worked. I lifted boxes, shifted boxes, organized boxes until my head swam and my muscles screamed. The papers that had been strewn around had been dumped into two boxes, and they were a little bit of everything, from housekeeping records to a couple of student files. There was no rhyme nor reason to them, either. It seemed as if the vandal (vandals?) had just torn into whatever box was closest. Putting everything back in order was going to be a big job, and I wasn’t sure that Darryl would want me to re-file everything on his dime.

  Finally I had all the boxes sorted by content. It amazed me how many student files there were, many more than it had appeared downstairs; just about every letter of the alphabet had several boxes.

  If I was going to do the kind of in-depth job Darryl wanted it was going to take a lot more time than he had expected. I should call him tonight and tell him about the files being available. Maybe he should come see this. Or maybe not – the scope might make him re-think the entire project, to say nothing of putting the scattered papers back where they belonged.

  I could be quiet for a while.

  Though tiring, the day had been a happy one... at least it was until Horowicz appeared in the late afternoon. Once I had unlocked the door he strode in without waiting to be asked and looked around with a strange expression that was half anger, half resignation.

 

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