August Moon (7 page)

I opened the library
a half an hour late, seeing Lucy’s smile in the unshelved books. I even thought I heard her giggle once, but when I went to the stacks where I had heard the sound, no one was there. The library was a lonely place to be on this day, and I was grateful when the door opened, even if it was Kennie who walked through it. We hadn’t seen each other since she had melted a little on my couch in July.

“I see you’ve pissed off God. It’s a growing club.”

“What?” The question was as much directed at her outfit as at her statement. She was dressed in head to toe leather, from the animal skin do-rag holding back her brittle platinum hair to the Bedazzled vest to the chaps-over-tight-leather pants that would make Cher feel exposed. I looked over her shoulder at the shimmering heat rising off the paved parking lot and back at her tightly sealed, oily body. All I could think was “mushroom farm.”

She thrust a stapled sheaf of papers at me. “See for yourself.” Her outrageously orange lipstick curled in a smile, nearly colliding with her Anna Nicole fake eyelashes. The sheaf was a petition, and the cause being supported was succinctly and clearly stated at the top. “Ban the Battle Lake Public Library until decency returns. Sign below if you support removal of the Godless literature currently being promoted.” Alicia Meales’ signature was the first, followed by 112 others, including Gary Wohnt, Elvis Aron Presley, and Ima Pigglicker.

“Jesus. Where’d you get this?”

“I’m the mayor of this town, and I got my finger on the pulse. You’all’re lucky we’re friends so I can look out for you. I’m passing this on as a heads up, but it’s just one of three going around town. It’s burning up the streets in Clitherall. People can’t sign it fast enough.”

My hands shook in anger laced with fear, both emotions amplified by the tragedy of this morning. How dare the Meales try to tell people what books they could and couldn’t read, and turn librarians into censors! Could they force me to take down the banned book display? Without a generous endowment from Tom Everts, who owned the lumber store and several other businesses when he was alive, this library never could have been built, but we counted on state funding for day-to-day operations. Well-stocked libraries with decent hours were an endangered species in today’s political climate. Was I about to get the library in big trouble? “Can I keep this?”

“It’s all yours, darlin.’ ”

I folded the petition carefully, pushing my finger tightly along the creases. My voice cracked as I asked my next question. I knew it was Lucy in that ditch, but I couldn’t bear to say her name out loud. “What do you know about the dead girl in Clitherall?”

Kennie drew up tall, making a squeak-whoof sound that I prayed was only leather on leather. “How do you know about that?”

“A little birdie told me.” I don’t know why I said that. I hated that phrase.

“Since Gary has found God, it takes a little longer for me to get my information, but you’re gonna find out soon enough. She was that girl you had working here part-time. A real sweetie by all accounts, about to start her senior year. Lucy Lebowski. She had been missing since cheerleading camp the night before.”

“Do they know who killed her?”

“They’re interviewing her coach, the girls who saw her last, but they don’t have anything solid right now. Why? You gonna solve another murder?”

I was suddenly reluctant to tell Kennie I was moving and so wouldn’t be around long enough. “Not if I can help it.”

“Whatever. Be sure to stop by my house later. I have a new business proposition for you.”

I nodded absently. When she left, I went online, feeling jittery and insignificant. I needed to erase the picture of Lucy’s corpse from my mind, and I wanted to distract myself from the dangerous and irrational anger I was feeling toward the Meales’ petition. Sure, the petition sucked, but I knew if it wasn’t for the stress of Lucy’s murder, I would be able to put it in perspective.

I had to stay in the library, so to get my mind off things, I settled for researching a passive-aggressive, anti-church recipe for the column the week after next—Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Sinfully Rich Frosting. It was aimed specifically at those who believed I was promoting “Godless literature.” I typed up the recipe and sent it off to Ron, who would probably pop a zipper when he realized I was turning something in before deadline.

As I clicked the “Send” button, I thought about my teen years, something I had been doing a lot this month. My last up-close and personal encounter with organized religion had happened in high school. My mom had turned to the church, as many women in abusive relationships do, and been advised to stick it out for the betterment of her family, as many women in abusive relationships are. I was certain that if her minister hadn’t told her that her marriage was a test of her strength and faith, she would have left my dad. Probably he still would have died a stupid death, but it wouldn’t have been so heart-wrenching and immediate to me. I wouldn’t have been forced to walk past that stinking car every school day for two years, wouldn’t need to wonder what people were whispering about when I walked by. But my mom was urged to keep her family intact—told, in fact, that that was what God wanted. A worse plan I’ve never seen executed. That was enough religion for a lifetime for this girl.

I was relieved when the front door opened. I looked up, hoping to see Sarah Ruth early for her shift. I could tell her about Lucy and maybe share the burden, and come up with a battle plan to deal with the petition. Instead, in walked a man in a cape.

In this life, there
are some things you can be sure of. One of them is that a man wearing a cape in Minnesota in August wants you to ask him some questions.

“Hello?”

He walked toward me, his hand outstretched. Except for the slick black cape, which was more of a capelet, I amended, he was average looking. Tall, maybe 6'4", with the awkward body of a man whose bones have grown faster than his muscles. His dark hair was mussed and hanging over his tiny, round John Lennon glasses. He grinned at me lopsidedly, making his unremarkable nose tug up over the left nostril. “I’m Weston Lippmann.”

We looked to be about the same age, so I dropped the formalities. “Hi, Weston. I’m Mira. New in town?”

“Pleased to meet you.” I thought I detected a soft, Southern accent, a natural one Kennie would kill for. “I’m new to town, but I’m not going to be in town. Not for very long. I’m a researcher around for a few weeks, and I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”

My curiosity was piqued. “What are you researching?”

“Wood ticks. I’m the curator of the United States National Tick Collection, which is currently housed at Georgia Southern University.”

Like that, my curiosity deflated. “The collection travels?”

“Yes! Just like wood ticks.” He smiled apologetically.

“Mind if I ask what’s up with the cape?”

His cheeks reddened. “A personal eccentricity. I’m not fond of birds. They have a bothersome habit of, um, dropping on me. If I’m going to spend a lot of time outdoors, it makes more sense to wear this so I can wipe off any leavings.”

“No way! Birds don’t like me either!” It’s embarrassingly relieving when you find you share a neurosis with another person.

“Really?” He wasn’t sure if I was teasing him or not.

“Totally, yeah! I think it’s because I accidentally killed one when I was a little girl. I found a nest, transplanted it to my sock drawer, and forgot about it. Ever since then, birds lunge at and generally harass me. People think I’m weird.”

His eyes glowed as we bonded over our shared peculiarities, two lone geeks at the prom comparing pocket protectors. “Me too.”

There was an awkward silence, which I rushed in to fill. “So, you ran outta ticks in Georgia to study?”

He made a funny, throat-clearing noise. “Right now we’ve got more than 123,000 ticks in our museum, but I had some vacation coming up, so I figured I’d head north. I’m looking for information on a new breed of deer tick reported in West-central Minnesota.”

“That’s a vacation?”

“Well, I don’t normally do field work. Not anymore. But I love it, and I have some family not far from here, so I thought I’d combine work and pleasure.”

“Hmm. Well, good luck with that. What do you want to find out here? In the library, I mean.”

“Do you have any locally published history? Farmer’s journals, business ledgers, and the like?”

“Most of that you can find at the Otter Tail County Historical Society in Fergus Falls, about twenty miles up 210. I do have a copy of
After the Battle
, though. It’s a pretty interesting history of Battle Lake, put together by the Centennial Committee when the town turned 100.”

“Perfect!”

I directed him to the spiral-bound book in the reference section in the rear of the library and returned to find Sarah Ruth settled behind the front counter. “I didn’t even hear the front door open!”

She smiled sadly, looking a little ashen. “All librarians are quiet. Who’ve you got in back?”

“Just a guy in a cape. Pay him no mind.”

“Whatever you say.” Her acceptance of the eccentricities this town swept across her path amazed me. She twisted her crucifix necklace around her finger, and her mood deepened. “Did you hear about poor Lucy? Shot and left for dead in a ditch in Clitherall this morning.”

“She wasn’t shot in the ditch.”

“What?”

I didn’t realize I had said it out loud, or that I had even been conscious of that detail, until I heard my own voice. “She was lying in a ditch, sure enough, right in the Clitherall Carwash, but there was no blood splattered near her. I don’t know a lot about guns, but I do know you can’t shoot someone in the back without leaving a pretty gory mess. Whoever murdered her did it before they tossed her into that ditch.”

Sarah Ruth hurried over and threw an arm around me. “Oh, you poor thing! You actually saw that horrible scene?”

Weston reappeared. “Oh! I’m sorry.” He pushed his glasses up his nose with his pointer finger and looked from Sarah Ruth to me, obviously uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I, it’s just that, is there any chance I can check this out?” He held up a red, white, and blue copy of
After the Battl
e.

I stepped away from Sarah Ruth and sucked a deep breath, all business. “No, but the newspaper sells them. I think they’re twenty dollars a copy.”

“The
Battle Lake Recall
, right? Where’s their office?”

“Right next to the post office. Go left out of here on Lake Street and you can’t miss it—right across the street from the Village Apothecary.”

“Would they also have information on any sort of community gatherings, sports events in the summer, that sort of thing?”

“I suppose.”

He flicked his cape at me and smiled shyly. “Thanks, Mira. I hope to see you again.”

“Watch out for the flying lizards.”

“You know it.”

When he left, I didn’t know what to say to Sarah Ruth. Her hug had thrown me off, so I returned to familiar territory—righteous anger. The banned book display petition reasserted itself at the forefront of my mind. “Do you know about the new ministry over at the New Millennium Bible Camp in Clitherall?”

She smiled distantly. “Yes. I went to services there last week. It’s right up the road from where I’m staying.”

“Really?” I wanted her to be as upset as I was. I was pretty sure she hadn’t recently been stood up and ditched across state lines by a very hot landscaper, gotten skunk drunk with a zaftig woman in bike shorts, or seen a young and sweet, tragically murdered cheerleader, but I knew there was one knob I could twist to get her tweaked. “Did you know those crazies are sending a petition around town to shut us down?”

“Shut down the library?”

“Well, at least shut down our banned book display. Who are they to say which books people can and can’t read?”

“Are you sure you have that right? The Meales seem like nice people, very supportive when I told them I was a librarian.”

I grimaced. “Next time you’re at one of their services, would you mind letting it drop that we’re not the enemy here at the library?”

“Of course.”

I wish that I could have left it at that, but patience was not a virtue I possessed. It was time to crank up the Pat Benatar, dig out the glitter eye shadow, and come out swinging. I had just the plan to restore a little justice to the world, and tomorrow afternoon would be the perfect time to put it into play.