Last Scene Alive

"Tonight, six to nine," I said. I'd told Sam I'd try to at least make the evening part of my shift, if I could. I didn't feel too bad.

"If we finish filming, I'll drop by," he said.

"Okay," I said doubtfully. "They're in a box in the back. By the employee entrance, but it'll be locked, so come to the main doors. I can show you." I was sure no one had had a chance to get to them in the past twenty-four hours.

"Good, maybe I'll get there tonight." He sounded much more relaxed than he had at the begi

"You're going in to work tonight?" Robin asked after I'd hung up.

"I ought to," I said. "I really don't hurt too bad, and with Patricia missing, I feel like I should keep things as even as possible. I'll call Sam to tell him as soon as I finish my coffee."

"I was hoping you'd stay with me," Robin said, doing his best to look pitiful.

"We've had our time today," I reminded him. "I think after work I'll need to come home and sleep some more. My arm is sore." Plus other things.

He kissed my shoulder. "Did that make it feel better?"

I tried not to smile, failed. "A little."

"Can we plan on tomorrow night?"

"Oh, yes. And I don't have to work the next day."

He smiled at me. Robin had a radiant smile.

We talked about the move for a while, and the book Robin was working on, while I returned the rest of my phone calls.

Sam was glad to hear I was coming in, since he hadn't found anyone to replace me yet. After an incident a few years ago, librarians weren't allowed to work by themselves, no matter how few patrons showed up in the evening. My mother was glad to hear I was all right, and she had some rental units to show Robin. My stepsister-in-law Poppy was glad, too, and she wanted me to know that Brandon had his very first tooth. Arthur wanted me to know that law-enforcement gossip had it that Tracy was talking at great length about everything: her long-standing obsession with Robin, begi

"That's good," I said, puzzled.

"She's telling us everything," he repeated, significantly. "In detail."

I could feel my face turn red as I realized Arthur was telling me that everyone in the SPACOLEC (Spalding County Law Enforcement Complex) was aware that Robin and I had had sex on the carpet in the office of the house I was buying.

"Oh," I said. My voice sounded small and embarrassed to my own ears.

"Oh," he said. Angry.

"Um. Well, I'll talk to you later, thanks for letting me know—I think."

"Roe, you realize this woman did not really kill Celia Shaw?"

"Yes, I know that." Point?

"You want to know what I think."

"No."

"I think your new boyfriend did it. I think he knew what disease she had and killed her out of mercy."

"I think you're nuts," I said furiously, and slammed the phone down.

But when Robin asked me what I'd gotten upset about, I didn't look him in the face. And I didn't explain. No one could have persuaded me to believe Robin murdered someone—anyone—out of malice. But out of pity... it was almost conceivable. A lovely young woman, once beloved, facing a horrible fate—it was just barely possible. Didn't the fact that she'd been drugged argue that whoever had killed her didn't want her to feel the pain? Didn't the pillow pressed over her face give her a comparatively gentle end? Celia Shaw had had a merciful murder, if you believed such a thing was possible.

I didn't know Robin well enough, really, to completely rule out such a possibility. I needed to be by myself: to think, to recover my equilibrium. I reminded myself vigorously that Robin had a practically ironclad alibi.

He left a few minutes later, and we pla

I could not have a relationship with someone who could do such a thing. On the other hand, when I thought of the dreadful disease that would have killed Celia slowly, maybe her death had been a favor to her. That didn't mean I could cohabit with the one who'd granted it.

I pottered around, cleaning our mugs and the coffeepot, taking some extra-strength pain reliever the hospital had sent home with me, cleaning myself up a little for work. By five-thirty, I was at least presentable and functioning, though at a low level. Jeans and a long-sleeved tee were not my usual working gear, but I was not about to try to change again. I put on my red-framed glasses, to give me pep, and brushed my hair awkwardly. With the damp and cold in the air, my hair was on its worst behavior. It made a cloud around me, crackling with electricity.

It was already dark when I used my key to enter the employee door of the library, always kept locked after dark. The lights were on in the employee lounge, and I glanced over to see the books Mark Chesney had brought in, still in their box on the repair table. Patricia's office was still dark. I wondered how far away she'd gotten by now, and I felt sorry for Jerome. As I slung my purse into my locker, I thought of how long Patricia had kept such a big secret, and how careful she must have had to be for many years.

A slip of the tongue, and her new life and her son would be gone.

Celia had had a massive secret, too. I wondered if she had known that her mother had died of the same disease she was developing. I wondered how she'd gone to work the first few days of filming, knowing what she was facing and how terrible her end would be: that surely her disease would become apparent to everyone in the course of time. I found myself thinking that Celia had surely had a theatrical flair, and she would have appreciated being a colorful True Crime episode rather than a disease of the week.

Lindsey Russell, a very young woman who'd just recently begun working as the children's librarian, passed through on her way out the back door. She gave me a cheerful wave, and told me the library had been really quiet all afternoon. Lindsey wasn't in the gossip loop yet, I gathered. I smiled back at her, and told her to have a good evening.

I strolled into the main part of the library, and discovered I was working with Perry. A few years before, it would have made me quite nervous to be alone with him. The money Sally had spent on him, or Perry's own determination to get well, or time itself, had gone far toward curing Perry of his many problems.

Perry was thin and nervous, but he was also a lot more sociable than he'd been, and he'd licked his drug problems. His relationships with women didn't seem to last too long, but wasn't that always the case until you found the One? I didn't always believe that there's a mate for every individual, but some days it was a real convenient and comforting concept.

"Hey, girl," Perry said. "I heard about your unexpected visitor. Was that the red-headed woman who was in here the other day, reading the magazines?"

"That was Tracy, all right. And she was the one who knocked me down in the parking lot, I'm sure."

"It was a woman, after all. You were right. How's the arm?"

"It's sore, but I'm going to be fine. No muscle damage to speak of."

"That's good. I can't believe you came in to work."

"I hated to stress Sam out any more than he's already stressed."

"So, you know Patricia left?"

I nodded cautiously. I didn't know what story Sam had told to give her a head start.