The Unkindness of Ravens Read online

  “I told Helene you probably hadn’t eaten anything,” Mary Alice said. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you faint.”

  “I never faint. I’m not the type.” I was the type who drank too much and made inappropriate comments. Fainting would be better.

  “Neither am I, but you’ve had a shock.”

  She handed me a cup of tea liberally laced with milk and sugar. I never took it that way, but it did the trick. After a few sips I was able to eat the snack she put in front of me.

  “I left my lunch bag upstairs.” The thought of eating anything that had been sitting next to Joanna’s body, however briefly, made my stomach roll. Mary Alice nodded.

  “I’m not supposed to say anything, but … someone was up there. In the attic. Do you know where Millicent was?” I said.

  Millicent Ames was our archivist. She’d been a fixture in the library for decades.

  Mary Alice raised her eyebrows.

  “She was helping me, but it’s possible. She wasn’t in sight all the time, and she did clear the second floor. But all those stairs that fast at her age? I just don’t know. The police arrived in waves, and then herded us all down here. She was one of the last to appear. What do you think happened?”

  “It could have been an accident, but I don’t think so.”

  “Something stinks,” Mary Alice said shaking her head. “Joanna hadn’t been herself.”

  “And where’s Vince Goodhue in all this?” I asked.

  “Good question.” She was about to say something else, but we heard voices in the hall. By the time the door opened, she was at the sink and I was back at the window.

  “You can talk to people individually in here,” Helene was saying. “The staff is next door. Greer is here. Mary Alice brought her some lunch.”

  “Thank you. We can take it from here.” O’Donnell said. “Ask the rest of the staff to wait next door. They can go as soon as we’re done talking to them.” He gave Mary Alice a pointed look. “We’ll see you as soon as we’re done talking to Ms. Hogan.”

  “Certainly, Sam,” she said, “glad to help if I can.” And as she followed Helene out the door, “Remember, she’s had quite a shock.”

  I busied myself making another cup of tea at the little machine on the counter, using the time to collect my thoughts. By the time I turned around, they were seated at the table, notebooks and extra-large Java Joint cups at the ready. Nothing like being half a mile from the only coffee shop in town to insure there was always a cop around when you needed one. No wonder they had gotten here so fast. I fought the urge to make a donut joke. Pleasant and cooperative, but just the facts. That was my plan. Keep it brief. What they asked, or didn’t, might be enlightening. I seated myself. First things first.

  “So, who did you find in the attic?”

  Webber’s eyes narrowed. O’Donnell sighed.

  “Tell us how you found Mrs. Goodhue. Start from when you decided to go upstairs,” he said.

  It had been worth a try.

  I recited the events of my lunch hour, pausing occasionally to picture the scene in my head. They didn’t jump in with any questions. I wound up with my call to Helene.

  “So, you knew she was dead when you saw her?”

  I shook my head. “She practically landed on me. She was cold when I touched her. I tried to find a pulse. And when I saw the blood …” I stopped.

  When I saw the blood, I started seeing things I’d only seen in nightmares since Danny died, and I decided someone had killed her. This was not a story I wanted to tell.

  O’Donnell tried again. “I know it’s tough, the first time you see a body, but please try to focus.”

  “No,” I stared into my tea, seeing the dark stairwell. Joanna. The dark apartment. Danny. Better they heard it from me first.

  “Not the first body.” I took a sip of my tea, not sure how to begin. “My husband.”

  Silence.

  “My late husband,” I added, “obviously.”

  I gripped my mug, returning O’Donnell’s level stare. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Webber giving me a cool look. Both remained silent.

  Do not babble, do not babble, I chanted silently. That’s what had gotten me in trouble the last time. I’d wait them out. For a while there was no sound but the ticking of the hideous cuckoo clock on the wall.

  O’Donnell and Webber exchanged a look. Then Webber spoke.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.” A brief pause. “How did he die?”

  “He interrupted a robbery in our apartment.”

  “And you found him?”

  “Yes.”

  More silence. Finally, she circled back around.

  “Cause of death?”

  Here we go.

  “Blunt force trauma.”

  O’Donnell shifted in his chair.

  “Blow to the head?”

  It wasn’t really a question. I could tell by the way he asked.

  I nodded. “He was struck from behind.”

  Another image of Danny flashed into my head. Bruising along his jaw. I frowned. That couldn’t be right if he’d been hit from behind. He was lying on his back when I found him.

  “Like Mrs. Goodhue,” Webber said.

  That got my attention.

  “So, she was, too?” I asked. “Not just a fall?”

  Webber flushed. O’Donnell stepped in.

  “We haven’t determined that,” he said. “Jennie?”

  Webber flipped some pages in her notebook.

  “You lived in New York City, is that correct?”

  She was going to check my story.

  “To find one dead body, Ms. Hogan, may be regarded as a misfortune; to find two looks like carelessness.” Or homicidal tendencies. What would Oscar Wilde have made of my sad little tale? At least it had taken place in his kind of neighborhood.

  “Upper East Side,” I said. She could look up the precinct herself. Would the neighborhood mean anything to her? Probably not.

  “And you know Mrs. Goodhue from there?”

  “No,” I said. “I met Joanna when she transferred to NYU. I was her RA for a year, as I told you earlier,” I added, turning back to Sam O’Donnell. “Are there any other questions I can answer for you about this afternoon?”

  “A few,” he said. He asked about other staff members, how many people used the roof for lunch, general traffic in the building, and the like. He wound up with the obvious.

  “When was the last time you saw Mrs. Goodhue?”

  “It was yesterday afternoon. She was using one of the computer stations.”

  “Was that typical, ma’am? Didn’t she have a computer at home?”

  Webber looked curious. She probably did everything on her smartphone.

  “If she was here with the kids, or on Friends’ business, she’d use them. We also have databases that you can’t access from home. I think she used some of them for her business. I know she did some research here.”

  And her browser history would be wiped as soon as she signed off. I wouldn’t have thought that would matter to her, but now I wondered. She’d been in more than usual lately.

  “What time was she in yesterday?”

  “I’m not sure when she arrived.” I’d been flying around the reading room, retrieving books and filling in displays, and spotted Joanna in the stacks. She waved and headed toward the computer stations. She caught my eye once or twice, but I was swamped. She was still there when the shift changed at four, engrossed in whatever was on the screen. I had bolted for the quiet of my office.

  “She was there at four. I don’t know when she left. I didn’t see her again, but I didn’t go back into the reading room.”

  “What time did you leave the building?”

  “Five. I had a haircut scheduled, and I didn’t want to be late.”

  I gave them the details of my evening. Salon appointment, dinner at the little soup place, and some shoptalk in the bookstore, all in the same plaza. All verifiable, up to when I le
ft the bookstore. I was home alone after that. The worth of my alibi would depend on the time of Joanna’s death.

  “Thank you, Ms. Hogan,” O’Donnell said. “That will be all for now. We may ask you to take a look at the attic tomorrow. You might notice something out of place, something that may explain how Mrs. Goodhue ended up going down the stairs the way she did. You weren’t planning any time off? Trips, anything like that?”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. Which was just as well. It’s not like the police could keep me here, but I sensed a hastily scheduled vacation would be frowned upon.

  I walked to the door, then paused with my hand on the knob.

  “Just one more thing,” I said, “I was wondering—why didn’t her husband notice she was gone?”

  My question was answered by silent stares. I stared back.

  “Why don’t you leave that to us, Ms. Hogan?” O’Donnell said.

  I’d had my Colombo moment, so I nodded and left.

  Chapter Three

  When I arrived at her office, Helene was leaning back in her office chair, eyes closed, cheetah print glasses sliding down her nose. Her short silver hair stuck up in spikes. She’d been running her hands through it, something she only did when agitated. Helene Montague was no one’s idea of a stereotypical library director. A fit sixty, she was always both stylishly and impeccably turned out. Having spent many years traveling the globe with her husband, a university professor of some wildly esoteric subject, Helene had a fashion sensibility with an international flair. I suspected it was our mutual love of clothes that had tipped the hiring decision in my favor. My interview had been on a cool September morning. I’d broken out one of the classic designer pieces from my high-paying corporate days. Helene greeted me at the rear door of the manor, introduced herself, and with one quick survey of my black sheath dress and jacket, said without preamble, “Is that Prada?”

  This afternoon we had more important things to discuss. Like what they found in the attic. And whether or not she considered me a potential murderer. Equally important, what the board thought of the situation. I knocked gently on the open door. Helene opened her eyes and gave me a small smile.

  “Greer. Come in. Have a seat. How did things go with the police?”

  “About as well as could be expected.” I seated myself in one of the chairs opposite her desk. “I couldn’t tell them much. Of course, finding the body puts me at the top of the suspect list, if all the cop shows are to be believed. Unless they found someone labeled “first murderer” lurking in the attic?”

  “For better or worse, they did not, and I don’t see you as the type to throw a friend down a flight of stairs. Besides, we don’t know what happened, and won’t for a while yet.”

  “So now what?”

  “We’ll keep the library closed for the rest of today and all of tomorrow. Friday is up in the air. The police will know more once they’ve finished talking to everyone and going over the building. Hopefully, they’ll have something definitive by tomorrow. I’ve informed the board we’ll have to play it by ear.”

  “That must have gone over well. What did Anita say?”

  “Essentially, that if I were a better library director dead bodies wouldn’t turn up in the library, and if the police were more competent, dead bodies turning up in the library would be dealt with efficiently and our patrons wouldn’t be inconvenienced.”

  I was relieved she hadn’t included, “and lunching librarians who find bodies should be suspended without pay until cleared of all wrongdoing.” But that could still happen.

  “Ah,” I said, “that sounds very much in character.” Anita Hunzeker chaired the board of trustees. She was petite, so thin she seemed pointy, with an excruciatingly exact haircut. She was never without her signature accessory—a colorful scarf. No matter the weather or activity, the casually draped scarf never moved. It wouldn’t dare. Anita had all the people skills of a rabid wombat and was often referred to as “Attila-the-Hunzeker” by the staff.

  “Well, she’s looking at it from a liability standpoint, not to mention PR. This isn’t good no matter what the cause, and she’s determined to get a new library building.”

  “True.” Sudden, unexplained death wasn’t going to increase public confidence in the library or its board. Murder even less so. Anita was determined that her legacy to the town would be a brand new state-of-the-art, high-tech library building. She was correct that we needed a new building, but there were many village residents who were quite attached to the old manor and who were willing to fight tooth and nail to keep things the way they were. Chief among these was Millicent Ames. The hostility between the two women was palpable. If it had been Anita at the bottom of the stairs I would have known exactly where to look for answers.

  “Well,” I said, “is there anything you’d like me to do?”

  “Go home and get some rest. I’m sending everyone home as soon as they’re done with the police. I’ll call you once I know what’s going on. I need to talk to Sam O’Donnell before I make any plans.”

  I left Helene, secure in the knowledge that my boss didn’t think I was a killer and my job was safe, at least for now. Not only did I not want to be a murder suspect, I needed the paycheck. Danny had been working for a start-up when he died and didn’t have life insurance. I’d sold our apartment for enough to pay for grad school and maintain a small emergency fund, but that was it. I didn’t live an extravagant lifestyle, but any loss of income, even a brief “administrative leave,” would be a problem.

  I took a circuitous route back to the library offices, curious as to what the police were doing and where, confident I would hear them before they spotted me. The force was small, and the manor was big. The main floor was quiet. A uniformed officer stood outside the front door with his back to me. The small vestibule was empty, the interior fire doors propped open. Sounds of footsteps and muffled voices drifted down the main staircase. The reading room was strewn from one end to the other with items abandoned when the building was evacuated. Everything was turned off. No sign of police activity, the action was confined to the upper floors.

  Nothing to see here, folks.

  This morning the main hall was bright and bustling with activity. Now it was dim and hushed, the only illumination provided by jagged shards of light stabbing through the leaded glass window above the front door. I padded down the hall, my reflection moving beneath the rippled surface of the antique mirrors that lined the walls, interspersed with portraits of Ravenscroft ancestors, whose disapproving gazes followed my progress.

  My desk was piled with books, copies of Publisher’s Weekly, catalogs of upcoming releases, and files. I’d barely been at my desk in the last two days, yet the mess had somehow grown. My organized chaos was disordered. Had the police been through it? No. I was pretty sure they’d need a warrant, even if it was library property. I eyed my jacket and bag. Everything I’d brought today was where I had left it that morning. But things on my desk were not where I’d left them last night. The changes wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone but me, but a couple of piles had shifted.

  Someone probably just needed to borrow a stapler or something, I thought. I’m overreacting. But my sense of unease grew. Feeling all of eleven years old, I placed some innocuous items—paper clips, a red pen, a bookmark—in places where they’d be moved if someone went through my desk. Then I gathered my belongings and left.

  My short trip home was uneventful, but that didn’t stop me from looking in my rearview mirror at frequent intervals. By the time I got home, the adrenaline that had fueled me since finding Joanna’s body had run out. I changed my clothes and stretched out on the couch, telling myself it was just for a few minutes.

  Three hours later I woke up with a scream, heart pounding, gasping for air. It must have only been a dream scream, or my landlord’s Frenchie, Pierre would be barking. I sat up, still a little disoriented.

  The dream was always the same, but today there was a variation. I was in my ap
artment in New York, standing over Danny. I had the phone in my hand, our old-fashioned landline that we never got rid of, but I couldn’t get a dial tone. My cell was in my tote bag, by the door where I dropped it. I couldn’t get it because someone was outside the door, just out of sight, waiting for me to come close enough to grab. That’s when I usually woke up.

  Today’s dream went further. I looked around and saw Joanna sitting at my desk with her back to me. I knew she would help if I could only get her attention. But no matter what I did she wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t move my feet. I couldn’t move at all. I finally tried to scream her name, and woke myself.

  I got up and put on some lights, then headed for the kitchen. Comfort food time. I pulled out my laptop to do some more digging while I ate my grilled cheese. Various news sites had developing stories about the body of a woman found in Raven Hill, but the information was sparse. The police were keeping a tight lid on things, which would make the board happy.

  I did a more detailed study of Joanna’s social media, but found no convenient death threats. Ditto the library page, though Joanna was involved in some heated discussions about the new building proposal. I jotted down the names in those threads. She was also involved in a long debate on the PTA page regarding the message sent to children about healthy food choices if chocolate milk was offered in the cafeteria. Joanna was pro-chocolate. As a child-free city girl, the things suburban parents got upset about mystified me, but I added the names from that thread to my list, and circled the ones that overlapped.

  At the end of this exercise, I didn’t have anything I thought would motivate a murderer, chocolate milk aside. Midsomer County we were not. Was the fact that it happened in the library related to why Joanna was killed, or was it convenient? Planned or opportunistic? If it was the latter, it must have been someone she knew, or someone with a reason for being there late or after hours. Joanna would have noticed anything out of the ordinary. She noticed everything.

  Maybe that was it. She was a detail person. She noticed everything, and she filed it away. She never forgot. If she thought it was important, she never let it go. What had she seen that someone didn’t want her to know?