August Moon (22 page)

The on-and-off rain of
the past week had soaked deep into the earth, massaging roots and worms all across Minnesota. In its wake was a lush greenness and air almost too thick to breathe. If you listened hard, you could hear plants humming, “Hallelujah” in high, squeaky voices. The moisture had broken the hot snap, but the Battle Lake First National Bank thermometer declared this Tuesday morning to be anything but cool. Seventy-seven degrees, and it was only nine a.m.

I had slept in, fed and watered my animals and myself, and left for work with barely enough time to open the doors, water the plants, turn on the lights, and dust. I’d leave shelving the books to Mrs. Berns, who was in the back room primping before our first patrons arrived—getting ready for the show, she called it. The return bin was overflowing, however, so I grabbed some books off the top to move to the counter. I had a hard enough time balancing my own body without adding cargo, and two tomes slipped out of my hand. That’s when the note fell, drifting to the ground like a feather.

It was simple, and not at all surprising: it was, after all, Gary Wohnt I had smelled on her two weeks ago.

Dear Mira:

Thank you for all your hospitality. You made me feel welcomed in Battle Lake, and you run a wonderful library. I don’t think you know how much you are admired and respected. If I had stayed at the library my whole life, I don’t think I could have met the standard you’ve set. However, the Lord has chosen a different path for me. He has thrown love in front of me, and it would be a crime to refuse this Gift. God has brought Gary Wohnt and me together, and together, we are going to explore this beautiful earth. I am sorry I am not able to give you two weeks’ notice. I hope you understand.

Yours in Faith,

Sarah Ruth O’Hanlon

I had mixed feelings. Sarah Ruth was a hard worker, but she also had a vague shiftiness about her. I was thinking specifically of her hiding that she had been dating Gary and not telling until she was asked if she had been a Christ’s Church of the Apocryphal Revelation congregant. That crooked quality was certain to interfere with her job and our friendship down the line. I was better off without her.

Gary Wohnt, though? He just might be irreplaceable. I took comfort in the fact that he had only taken a four-week leave of absence and not quit his job altogether. He might be hedging his bets, or not as serious about the relationship as Sarah Ruth. There was hope he would be back. Anyhow, the fact that they had been dating explained their weirdness for the past two weeks, the secretive phone calls, awkward encounters, and odd behaviors. Guess you
can
keep a secret in a small town.

“I knew that God groupie was never going to last. No spine.”

“Mrs. Berns! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I’m eighty-nine. I got nothin’ but sneak. What’s that part about you being a great librarian?” She tilted her head at the letter.

I crumpled it up and tossed it in the nearest wastebasket. Perfect shot, no rim. “She’s just stroking me. You know how it is when you quit a job. You don’t want to feel like a heel, so you try to make your boss feel better.”

“You are still the boss. What’re you going to do about getting a replacement now? Somebody up there must really want you to stay on in Battle Lake.” Mrs. Berns winked at the sky.

“If that’s the case, He certainly does move in mysterious ways. Psychotic, passive-aggressive, mysterious ways.”

“Speaking of heavenly bodies, is that Johnny Leeson coming up the sidewalk?”

I glared at her, not at all in the mood for bad jokes. When the door donged open, I turned, expecting to see Les Pastner, or some other repellent human being. When my eyes connected with Johnny’s tentative, cerulean, bottomless, thick-lashed peepers, I fell off my crutches.

He rushed to my
side and put one tanned, muscular arm around my waist and gently pulled me up. “Are you all right? Why are you on crutches?”

His thick and curly dirty blonde hair brushed against my neck, and I smelled his signature scent, a mixture of green earth and something clean and natural, like a fresh-cut cucumber. “I’m technically not on crutches at the moment. I’m on you.”

He smiled, his face inches from mine. My heart was pumping so hard that I blushed, and I pulled away and hobbled over to the counter. He followed. “I’m gone for a few weeks and you manage to break your ankle.”

“It’s not broken, it’s sprained. And you’ve been gone five weeks.” So nice of my harpy shrew desperate alter ego to come calling. It got so lonely in my head without her.

“The U-Mad project was finished early.”

I pushed my hair behind my ears, taking silent inventory on my appearance. Clean, sporadically brushed hair, no makeup, white tank top, fading bruises circling my wrists like bracelets, cut-off shorts, and flip-flops. Oh, and no eyebrows. Yep, just like he had left me, give or take a wound and some hair. “You’re just back to get some stuff, then?” My voice arched high and squeaky with the last word. Sniffing out killers, vandals, and secret lovers, I was good at it. Talking to men I really liked, not so much. And the sad truth, impossible to deny with him across from me, was that I did really like Johnny. Oh boy, did I.

He scratched his head, and looked over at Mrs. Berns. “Can I talk to Mira alone for a minute?”

“You can, but she says even stupider things when I’m not around to keep an eye on her. I’ll stay and coach her, if you don’t mind. It’d be the best for both of you.” Mrs. Berns nodded encouragingly.

“Um, okay. I brought you something, Mir.” He walked back to the door and picked up the two potted plants he had set down when he saw me biff off my crutches. “It’s a pepper and a tomato plant. I went to your house and saw someone had trashed your garden.” He looked from my wrapped ankle to my wrists and back to my face, silently asking if there was a connection between the violence to my garden and the violence to me. I didn’t offer any insight. “Anyhow, I can help you plant these.”

“Thanks, but I can do it—”

“With your sexy-hot body right next to my side. Please don’t wear a shirt and oil your chest like you’re about to cook some eggs on it,” Mrs. Berns suggested.

I glared at her, but she refused to look at me.

Johnny laughed. I forgot how nice his laugh was. It was open and friendly, and had the same huskiness as his voice. “I’ll see what I can do. But first, I wanted to tell you something.”

Both Mrs. Berns and I leaned forward, me anxious and her curious. Before Johnny could finish his thought, the door banged open, and Kennie slinked on in, dressed in a Halloween stripper-cop uniform. “I have an announcement!”

As one, Johnny, Mrs. Berns, and I looked her over from her five-inch patent leather pumps, to her fishnet stockings, to her hot pants that were actually on the tepid side due to some blessedly unidentifiable skin flaps that were escaping, to her button-down shirt complete with silk tie and badge. Around her waist she wore a belt with a flashlight, gun, and billy club, and on her head was perched a police hat of a design not seen outside of 1980s cop shows.

“You’re going on a donut run?” Mrs. Berns asked.

“That was quotable. Somebody get me an embroidery pillow. No, I have wonderful news. Since Gary Wohnt is leaving town for four weeks, I’ve stepped in as the new Battle Lake Chief of Police, so look out crime!” Kennie opened her arms and twirled, using her beauty pageant background to keep upright in her stilt-like stilettos.

Oh my. I shook my head. “Can you just do that?”

“Honey child, I can do it all.”

As if responding to a song cue, Tina of Tom and Tina’s Taxidermy strode through the door, only it took me a couple beats to recognize her. Her head was high, her shoulders were straight, and there was a touch of cockiness in her step. She had morphed into a redhead since our meeting yesterday, and the auburn color complemented her skin and eyes nicely. Without waiting for her turn to speak, she set herself in the center of the group. “I won’t take much of your time. I just stopped by to say thank you.”

My head was reeling from the revolving-door morning. “For what?”

“For shoehorning me out of a terrible relationship. I always hated that store. Dead animals and jewelry? It’s stupid, and it always smelled like a morgue. I put it on the market this morning.”

I smiled at her sassiness. “Tom’s okay with that?”

“Doesn’t matter. I owned the store before we were married, and I kept it in my name. I’ve been squirreling money away for years, too. I’ve got a house in Florida in my mom’s name, and I’m moving there for good. Tom wasn’t the only one with tricks up his sleeve.” She chuckled. “I’m going to be just fine, and I can’t thank you enough.”

Mrs. Berns and Kennie eyeballed me suspiciously. I knew they were going to hammer me for details later. Johnny just stood back and took it all in, the plants still cradled in his brown arms. Every time I noticed anew how white his T-shirt was against his sun-kissed body, I felt a little shiver in an area I thought I had consigned to a life of lonely darkness, interrupted only by the occasional bike ride. “You’re welcome, but this is all you, Tina.”

“You bet it is. It’s all me, finally.” She gave us all one great wink and went back out the way she had come, humming “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

“That bitch stole my thunder.”

“Kennie, no one will ever steal your thunder. I promise.”

Mrs. Berns and Johnny nodded in acknowledgement of the plain truth.

“Don’t you have some police work to do?’

“I suppose I do—but before I go, I want to ask you if you’d be my paid consultant. You’d be reimbursed out of city funds. You know, for solving the odd mystery.”

I shook my head. I could still smell the burn of gasoline in my nostrils. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Just don’t wait too long. Battle Lake gets busy, and I need the help.”

When she left, Johnny seemed reluctant to pick up where he had left off. He settled the plants on the broad front counter and made a show of pinching dead leaves. Mrs. Berns and I waited not so patiently. He turned around when he was ready. “Mira, what I wanted to tell you is that I’m not going back to Madison. Not this year, anyhow. My mom deserves to have me close right now.

“I feel bad about leaving the way I did. Not just leaving my mom, but leaving you. I had every intention of coming over to your house that night, and I was really looking forward to spending time with you.” He looked at Mrs. Berns, who gave him the “and…?” look. “And I really like you. I want to see if this can go somewhere between us. I realize I have to earn your trust back. I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance.”

“Not only will she give you a chance, she’ll give you a—”

“Mrs. Berns!” When she didn’t leave right away, I pointed toward the back of the library. “The books need to be shelved. Now.”

“Fine, but don’t look at me when you can’t get that hoof outta your piehole.”

When she was out of earshot, I looked back at Johnny, but it was difficult. I was suddenly shy. “We’re going to have to back it up. You know, back it up to friends. For a while.”

He looked relieved. “That’s fair. I can do that.”

Suddenly, I smiled. It
was
fair, and it felt right, with an undercurrent of pleasant anticipation. “How is your mom doing?”

“Good, but she needs me closer until she gets her feet back under her.”

“It does feel good to be needed, doesn’t it?” I had decided last week, Sunday, in the ambulance on the way to Alexandria, that I was going to stay in Battle Lake, at least through the winter. This place had its problems, don’t get me wrong, but I felt like I belonged and like I mattered, and that was a new sensation for me. I took Johnny’s unexpected arrival as confirmation that my choice to stay was a good one. “Say, what would you think about you and your mom having dinner with me and my mom? She’s going through a tough time, and it’d be good for her to have more friends.”

That would give me an excuse to call her and explain the strange letter she was about to get, postmarked in Clitherall, ranting about a crazy pastor who was kidnapping and murdering teenage girls, and ending with an apology for how I acted when she told me that she had breast cancer. I leaned back in my library chair, once again queen of my domain. I was warm with a confidence in myself as alien in my life as hangovers had become familiar. Maybe a little faith wasn’t such a bad thing.

The End