Bachelor's Puzzle

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_58d4a1a3-a4ca-58d8-8473-d54400714e8f)

ELISE FERGUSON BRUSHED her fingertips through her short pale hair, smoothing it at the same time as she tried to fluff it. The perm she had gotten a few months ago was already loosening and she knew that soon she would have to get another. But right now she just didn’t have the time to think about it.

She leaned forward, peering closely into the mirror at the fine lines that seemed to have appeared from nowhere over the past few years. Then she moved back, checking whether the hurried makeup job had been sufficient. From a distance, it worked. She didn’t look substantially worse for wear than any other fifty-three-year-old who had just spent a morning in hell. And with the donning of her dress-for-success, reserved-for-meetings suit, she gave the illusion of complete competency. No one would believe that a scant half hour before, dampened through and through, she had raced into the bathroom, streaked with dirt from head to toe, her baby-fine hair sticking out at odd angles and her dress a shambles.

Elise’s stomach gave a nervous rumble. She knew she probably should eat something, but there wasn’t time for that, either. She had to be back at the library in—she checked her watch—five minutes. Five minutes! Impossible!

She reached for a bottle of her favorite scent and misted a light bouquet of spring flowers over herself. Then, grabbing a pair of tiny gold studs, she slipped them into her ears as she hurried down the stairs.

“Elise!” Her sister’s voice held a petulant edge. “Elise! I need you to do something for me!”

Elise veered into the living room, where her older sister, Bea, sat before the television set, their fat yellow cat, Buttercup, in her lap.

Bea’s gaze revealed her disapproval. “I asked before you went upstairs, but you didn’t hear me, I suppose. I’d like my wrap! It’s cool in the house today. You left too many windows open.”

It was summer; the temperature outside was in the mid-eighties. Still, Elise didn’t protest. “Would you like me to close them?” she asked.

Bea frowned grumpily. “No, just get my wrap. And the mail. I heard the postman come about an hour ago.”

Elise hurried onto the porch, checked the mailbox and withdrew some bills and a magazine. Bea’s doll collectors’ magazine. That would make her happy. She hurried back inside and delivered the magazine before moving into the kitchen. “I’m just going to warm up leftovers today, Bea,” she called into the next room. “I have a meeting I’m already late for.”

Her sister mumbled something that Elise didn’t understand, but she didn’t ask her to repeat it. Elise popped a bowl of yesterday’s shepherd’s pie into the microwave, arranged a small salad, buttered a piece of wheat bread and sweetened a glass of iced tea. All this she balanced on a serving tray and brought to her sister.

Bea shifted the cat from her lap, all the while grumbling beneath her breath. Finally, she said clearly, “I’m still cool!”

Elise groaned and glanced at her watch. Then she hurried into the bedroom just off the living room to find the wrap. “Here,” she said, spreading the soft material over her sister’s shoulders. “Is there anything else?”

At one time Bea had been beautiful, with silver-blond hair flowing softly to the middle of her back, bright blue eyes that flashed with anticipation and a delicacy of features and build that the two sisters still shared. Now, Bea pulled her hair into an unbecoming knot at the base of her neck, discontent had faded the color of her eyes and bitterness contorted the fragility of her features.

Adjusting her wheelchair to a more comfortable position at the side table, Bea said dismissingly, “No, I wouldn’t dream of asking for anything else. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your meeting.”

Elise suffered a pang of guilt. “It’s with the architect, Bea. The professor who’s going to see if he can help us build the new library. I’d forgotten all about it what with the water leak and everything. Remember when I first came in, I told you that a number of books had gotten wet and that people from all over Tyler had come to help?”

Her sister fixed her with a cool gaze. “You said something, but I didn’t understand. I thought you’d fallen into a mud puddle.”

Elise sighed and rubbed a hand across her brow, a telling gesture that she was unaware of using. “I’ll explain everything this evening, all right? Right now I really have to...”

“Go. I know. You always have to go.”

Elise wanted to scream. She wanted to yell at her sister that she couldn’t help it if she had to hurry off to her job. That if she hadn’t done so for these past thirty years they wouldn’t have eaten very well. There would be no house, no television, no leisurely outings, no subscriptions to doll collectors’ magazines, no vast collection of dolls.... But she kept her tongue, just as she had for all these years, knowing that Bea had reason to be bitter. “Yes, I do,” she agreed. “I’ll try to be home by six-thirty, but if I can’t, I’ll get Josephine to come make your dinner. I’ll let you know.”

Bea picked at the pie with her fork and didn’t say anything, a point Elise didn’t regret as she finally left the house. She was already nervous enough about her meeting with the architectural professor. The stakes were high—as in whether Tyler would continue to have a library and she herself a job!

Elise dashed for her car, a moderately old, tan Ford Escort, and quickly backed out of the drive. In her mind she rehearsed an apology for being late, one she hoped she would be able to deliver with a modicum of dignity.

* * *

THE ALBERTA INGALLS Memorial Library was housed in a spacious home built around the turn of the century. A series of narrow, vertical windows showcased the second-floor exterior, while a large wraparound porch with strong white columns gave character to the first. Over the years, Elise had planned the landscaping herself, encouraging the growth of rich evergreen shrubs along the base of the porch and seasonal flowers in the accompanying wide beds. The grass had a lush green cast, with shade provided by both oak and maple trees.

Normally the scene was placid, inviting patrons to come inside for a leisurely browse, but that was not the image presented today. Elise was forced to bypass the jammed parking spaces in front of the building and add her car to the numerous others crowded end to end along both sides of the street.

The library was a hive of activity. People moved busily inside and out. The front porch, usually reserved for quiet reading, was congested with folding tables. They in turn bore the weight of numerous books that were being set on end and fanned open so that they could begin to dry, even as more books continued to be removed from the water-damaged room within.

Elise gathered her purse from the passenger seat and hurried toward the scene. She was grateful to all the people who had turned out. It seemed as if everyone in town who could help had come when told about the emergency.

As Elise stepped onto the porch, Delia Mayhew, one of the library’s two part-time aids, rushed to greet her. “We’ve gotten almost all the books out now, Elise. We’re down to the Vs on the last shelf!” Delia’s dusky cheeks were flushed a becoming shade of pink and her dark eyes were shining. She had just turned twenty-one and had seldom, if ever, traveled farther than a two-hundred-mile radius from her home. For her, the accident that morning was a cause for genuine excitement.

Alyssa Baron looked up from her work with the wettest books. Elegant, blond and regal of bearing, Alyssa could always be counted upon in times of trouble. As the only daughter of the town’s most influential man, she seemed to feel service to the people of Tyler was her duty. She and her very pregnant daughter, Liza Forrester, were carefully placing sections of paper toweling between individual pages to act as blotting agents. “It’s a good thing the accident happened in the Biography Room,” Alyssa murmured wryly after hearing Delia’s somewhat oddly worded description. “Otherwise we’d have a hard time telling exactly where we were.”

Grinning at her mother’s wry jest, Liza agreed, “Oh, definitely. The Dewey Decimal classification 973.629A just doesn’t have the same ring to it as a V, does it?”

Cliff Forrester, Liza’s husband, came up beside them. “What’s this about V?” he asked, watching as his wife tore off another section of paper towel and placed it between two pages. “You’re not planning names for the baby, are you? What starts with a V? Let’s see: Virgil, Venus...”

Liza tilted her head and gave a devilish smile. “What would you do if I wanted to name our child Venus?”

Cliff smiled slowly and surprised Elise by winking at her. Normally, he was so quiet and self-contained. “Why, I’d agree,” he said. “What else?”

Johnny Kelsey dropped an armload of books onto a table behind Elise. “I’ve talked with Pastor Schoff,” he announced, causing Elise to turn toward him. “We can have the church hall any time we want it. When I get off work this evening, I’ll bring some of the men from the F and M and we can shift all this again.” He motioned to the tables and books scattered along the porch. “That’s still what you want, isn’t it? To get this lot moved inside somewhere?”

Elise met the deep-set gray eyes of the man she’d known since childhood. “If you could do that, Johnny, it would be wonderful. Do I need to speak with Pastor Schoff myself?”

Anna Kelsey arrived just in time to hear Elise’s question. She, too, was delivering an armload of damp books. “Probably should,” she said. “I’m sure he could arrange fresh volunteers for tonight if you ask him.”

“I’ll call right away. Oh!” Elise suddenly looked stricken. Once again she had gotten carried away by the immediate problem and forgotten the more looming threat. “Has anyone seen Professor Fairmont?”

There was a series of shrugs and head shakes. “Not since earlier,” Alyssa said.

“What about Renata?” Elise asked. “She said she’d watch out for him.”

Again Alyssa shook her head.

Elise’s stomach tightened. Robert Fairmont’s reputation was impressive. As a practicing architect, he had won numerous design awards, and his track record as a teacher was impressive, too. A growing number of his former students were beginning to make names for themselves, with many attributing much of their success to him. Had he been insulted that she was late for their appointment, and so had decided to leave?

“Where’s Pauline?” she tried yet again, starting to feel more than a little desperate. Delia pointed to a group of people at the far end of the porch. With a soft murmur, Elise excused herself.

Pauline Martin, the library’s only full-time aid, was a plump woman in her early forties with short, light brown hair and a perpetual expression of amused good cheer. An earth-mother type, she loved working with the children who came to the library, and along with Elise had developed a program that several libraries in other small towns now emulated.

When she saw Elise, Pauline broke into a beaming smile. “You look perfect! Don’t touch a thing! Otherwise you’ll get all dirty again. Have you heard? We can use the hall at Fellowship Lutheran. Pastor Schoff didn’t understand at first why we couldn’t just put the books in another part of the library, but when Johnny told him about the dampness spreading to the rest of the collection, he agreed right away. Just like Johnny understood when you told him earlier. He—”

Elise broke into the ongoing stream. If Pauline were turned loose, they could be standing there for hours. “Pauline, Professor Fairmont—have you seen him?”

Pauline frowned. “Why, yes. Just a little while ago. He was...somewhere.” She scanned the people on the porch. “The last time I saw him, he was by the front steps.”