Lemon Tart (11 page)

“Jean,” the librarian said as the other library worker entered
the round counter and walked within whispering range. “Why is the name Anne
Lemmon ringing a bell for me?”

“Anne Lemmon?” Jean repeated, smiling at Sadie again, then
furrowing her brow in concentration. Sadie held her breath, hoping she would
remember. If not, Sadie would wonder all day why Anne’s name had held
recognition. Jean’s face lit up after a few seconds and Sadie could breathe
again. “She’s that one who always has papers in her books—remember?
If I’m not mistaken we forgot to give them back to her last time she was in,”
she said, moving to the left and pulling open a drawer. “She’s the Southie,”
she added.

“Southie?” Sadie repeated.

Jean nodded but continued fumbling in the drawer. “In my final
semester I took a class on North American language. It’s fascinating how speech
is influenced by different regions and climes of our country.”

“And Anne?”

“Was a Southie—from the south side of Boston.
She’d tried to refine her speech patterns, which made it even more exciting
when I pegged it. She was surprised I’d noticed.” Jean looked up and was about
to hand over the papers she’d recovered from the drawer when she paused. “Oh,
wait, I need to give these to Anne. Sorry, Sadie.”

“Anne died this morning,” the green-rimmed librarian
commented as discreetly as possible. “This woman is her friend; she returned
her books for her.”

Jean was stunned. “Oh,” she said after a few shocked seconds.
“I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” Sadie said, looking at the counter and thinking fast.
She had to get those papers. “I’m trying to get her house ready for family. I
could take the papers with me and put them with her other things.”

Jean’s face softened with sympathy and she didn’t hesitate to
hand the papers over.

“Thank you so much,” Sadie said, looking between both women.
“Anne loved coming here. She said she’d never had such great customer service.”
Both librarians smiled and nodded. Sadie smiled back, put the long printout of
Anne’s former reading into her purse, and headed toward the front doors. She
went through the first set of glass doors and stepped to the side in an alcove
before pushing through the exterior doors. She couldn’t wait another second to
look at the papers Anne had used for bookmarks in her last round of steamy
reads. Maybe she’d used a letter from Trevor’s father, or a postcard from her
parents.

The first paper was a grocery list:

•Peanut butter

•Vegetable oil

•Tampons

•Peaches

•Pizza

Sadie moved to the second one—a past receipt
for books Anne had checked out three weeks ago. The third bookmark slowed her
breathing. It was a business card from an attorney here in Garrison. Sadie’s
heart rate increased and she read the information slowly.

Attorney Susan M. Gimes

Specializing in all matters of family
law

Sadie flipped it over, not believing her luck when she found a
handwritten note on the back:

Wednesday 9:00—bring
papers.

“I’ll take those, Mrs. Hoffmiller.”

Sadie startled and looked up into the eyes of Detective Madsen.
She pulled the card to her chest and took a step backward. “What—what
are you doing?”

“Conducting a police investigation,” he said through tight
lips. “Something you just can’t seem to stay out of—which only
makes it more and more obvious to me that you have far too much unwarranted
interest in this case.”

Chapter 10

Sadie
straightened and clenched her jaw. “You followed me?”

“And for good reason,” he said. “Now give me the papers.”

Sadie hesitated a moment and then held the items in question
even closer. “I don’t think so,” she said, lifting her chin. “They were given to
me to put with her other things.”

“Her other things
are all part of a crime scene—those papers are hereby part of
the investigation too.”

Sadie pursed her lips and said nothing as she tried to figure a
way out of this.

“You don’t want to push me,” Madsen said, leaning so close to
her that she could smell the coffee on his breath. Library patrons continued to
walk in and out of the building, looking at them. “I’ve taken as much
interference from you as I’m going to.”

“And I’ve helped you out a great deal as well,” Sadie fired
back—not bothering to whisper at all. An older woman stopped to
stare at them openly. Sadie couldn’t tell if she was simply watching for
entertainment or truly concerned for Sadie’s safety. “Yet you continue to
suspect me, and now you’re even following me after Detective Cunningham told me
I could return Anne’s books.”

“Detective Cunningham?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, a look of
amused arrogance on his face.

Sadie reviewed what Officer Malloy had said when he handed over
the books. He’d simply said the detective asked him to bring them over. She’d
assumed it had been Cunningham. Apparently she’d assumed wrong. “Why go
through all the trouble of having me do this?”

“Because I wanted proof that you’re a troublemaker, that’s why.
I’m on my way to a hearing and thought I’d give it a shot. And sure enough, you
found something and you want it for yourself.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “You have all the logic of a fourteen- year-old,”
she said. “I haven’t even left the library—I didn’t have time
to call you.”

The old woman was still standing there, glancing between Sadie
and the check-out counter as if trying to decide whether or not to
call for help. Sadie looked at her imploringly, until another woman several
feet ahead of her turned and said, “Julia, are you coming?” The old woman gave
Sadie a shrug, as if to say she’d help her if she didn’t need to get inside.
Sadie was not impressed. Was there no such thing as a good citizen
anymore?

“Come with me,” Detective Madsen said through clenched teeth.
He took her arm, none too gently, and led her out of the building. Sadie tried
not to show her own panic, though she realized what she ought to do was scream
for help. She stumbled to keep up with him until they reached the same blue
sedan she’d seen in front of Anne’s house earlier. He opened the back
door.

“I’m not getting into that car with—” The next thing she
knew she felt his hand on the top of her head and within mere moments she was
in the car. How’d he do that? The next second he was in the car too, right
beside to her.

“Look,” he said in a voice thick with frustration as he slammed
the door shut. “I’m trying to solve a murder here.”

“That you think I committed.”

“You are not helping yourself by being so difficult.”

She scooted as far away from him as possible—it
wasn’t decent to be squished up against him in a parked car, even if she was a
decade or two older than he was. What if someone saw them? She tried to open
the door to get out, but it was locked.

“I’m not being difficult,” she said. “I’m only trying to help.
I don’t believe it is within your authority to detain me against my will.”

“I think you happen to know an awful lot about things you
shouldn’t know and it’s most certainly within my authority to investigate that.”

Sadie furrowed her eyebrows. “What do I know that I shouldn’t
know?”

“Where she was killed. Where all her important papers were kept—”

“You people asked me those things!” she yelled.

“And you knew the answers!” he yelled back.

“I’m trying to be helpful!”

“You’re making a mess of it. This is real life, lady, not some
game. You’re not going to beat us to the punch and solve the crime, so if
that’s what you’re trying to do, it’s time to give it up.”

“I’m only trying to help,” Sadie said again and folded her arms
over her chest.

“If you wanted to help, you’d keep your nose out of things.”

Sadie pursed her lips to keep from saying that she had no
choice but to put her nose into things. This wasn’t just about Anne. Ron was
involved, and Trevor was still gone. She considered the enormity of the answers
she still needed to find, and felt tears rise up; she quickly blinked them
away. “Fine,” she said, handing over the papers. “But I want it on the record
that I think you are treating me very unfairly and that I have cooperated at
every turn. Whatever issues you have with Detective Cunningham are your
problem. Trying to one-up him by badgering me is a pretty lousy substitution
for whatever you’re trying to get.”

Madsen’s neck turned a dark pink and his jaw flexed. She’d hit
a nerve. He let out a grunt and shook his head. “Just back off and let the
professionals do their job,” he said as he took the papers from her.

She bit back the sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue
about just how professional he
was being. He looked through the papers and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I
need the other one too,” he said with exasperation.

“Look, I gave you what I was given, if—”

“The business card,” Madsen said in sharp tones. “Give it to me
or I’ll arrest you for interfering with a police investigation. I’m already
late for the hearing so just give me the card and let me do my job.”

Sadie let out a sigh and pulled the card from the sleeve of her
hoodie where she’d managed to hide it. She told herself she would have given it
to him later, but he brought out the worst in her and made her act like the
Sadie who once hid her dad’s golf clubs because he wouldn’t let her go to a
party after a high school football game. He never did find out she was the one
who put them behind the water heater and made him miss his tee time.
Passive-aggressive was likely the technical term, but Sadie thought
of it as quiet justice. Madsen took the card and then held her eyes. She didn’t
flinch.

“Can I expect you to stay out of this now?” he asked in what
she supposed was a professional
tone but was actually a ten on the offensive scale.

“Does Detective Cunningham know you’re here, pulling me into an
unmarked car and threatening me?”

The pink on Madsen’s neck inched its way up. He said
nothing.

Sadie nodded sharply. “That’s what I thought. Will you please
let me out, or should I start screaming for help?”

He let out a long breath and finally opened his door. He slid
out and she stepped out a moment later, not looking at him or allowing him any
parting comments. Her car was only a few spaces away, and once inside, she
waited until Madsen had pulled out of the parking lot. Then she reached under
her seat to retrieve her local phone book. She always kept last year’s edition
in her car for reference while running errands.

It took less than a minute to find Attorney Gimes’s address.
She smiled to herself and shifted into drive.

Chapter 11

Sadie pushed
through the glass doors and approached the reception desk. She cleared her
throat. “Hi,” she said to the twenty-something blonde behind the
desk. The desk groaned under the weight of papers and files piled everywhere
and the receptionist was sufficiently frazzled. “I wondered if I could speak
with Susan Gimes,” Sadie asked.

“Do you have an appointment?” the young woman asked without
looking up from the files in her hands.

Sadie shook her head. “No.”

The receptionist looked at her for the first time. “Are you a
client?” she asked and Sadie could have wrung the condescension from her voice
like water from a dishrag.

“No, but a friend of mine was.”

The woman’s face hardened even more—apparently
being the friend of a client and having no appointment didn’t count for much.
“I just wanted to talk with Susan Gimes for a minute. I guess I should have
called first.”

“A call would have been nice,” the receptionist said almost too
quiet to hear. Louder, but with no more enthusiasm, she added, “Have a seat.
I’ll see if she has a minute.”

“Thank you,” Sadie said. She backed up and sat in one of the
red upholstered chairs in the waiting area. She’d no sooner sat down when her
cell phone rang, causing her to jump.