Tough Cookie полностью

Our small-town library, with its brick walls, steeply pitched copper roof, and two peaked reading towers, was an enchanting spot. I was alone in this opinion, though: Hundreds of letters to the local paper had protested the year-old structure as unmountainish. Unless public edifices looked like lodges, Rocky Mountain folks found them repulsive. Ever-resourceful Marla wrote in that we should call the place the “Château de Volumes.” No one took her up on it.

I squinted through the snowflakes and was surprised to see a very large banner hung across the library entrance. HOLIDAY RECEPTION—REFRESHMENTS! it screamed. Might as well have said FREE CHOW! On the other hand, the thickening snow might deter the hordes. Tom liked to tease that I was unhappy if there were too many folks, and miserable if there were too few. In other words, like the original Goldilocks, I was too picky.

As it turned out, the event was wonderful, or rather, just right. Over a two-hour period, about sixty wellbundled patrons tramped into the reading tower, shed coats, boots, mittens, and scarves, cozied up to the gas fireplace, and indulged in cookies, muffins, and each other’s company. Marla gushed to every single guest that these were the best treats in the universe. People enthusiastically replied, Yes, the best indeed. My heart warmed, especially when a dozen patrons begged me to do their Christmas parties. Rather than shamefully admit to my official closure—with my business shut, I could only give munchies away, I couldn’t sell them—I replied that my personal chef work and the TV show in Killdeer had me fully booked up to the new year. To which Marla, ever the optimist, added that I was compiling a waiting list for February. She urged patrons, Call Goldy and order your special Valentine’s Dinner, delivered right to your door!

When I shot her a blank look, she winked and gave me a thumbs up. At least ten people swore they’d give me a ring. What would I do without Marla?

The afternoon’s only wrinkle came as I was packing up. One of the librarians told me in a low voice that I should not forget to pick up the books I had ordered. When I said I hadn’t ordered any books, she said that I had a whole packet of material at the front desk. It had been there since late yesterday, she added. Must be late-arriving reference material for Arch’s physics project, I thought. I packed up the Rover, then made my way to the counter.

“There must be some mistake,” I told the checkout librarian as soon as I leafed through the contents of a manila file folder and glanced at two rubber-banded books, both labeled for me. “I didn’t request these.”

“Library card, please.” Without looking at me, she held out her hand for my card. I riffled through my wallet, confessed I couldn’t find the card, and waited while she tapped keys on her computer, frowning. After a moment, she asked me if I was Goldy Schulz and recited my street address. When I said yes, she frowned some more, tapped more keys, then said I must have forgotten I’d ordered the books and articles, because I’d certainly used my card to request them.

Doggone it. I looked down at the books in my hand: Avalanche Awareness and The Stool Pigeon Murders. The first was a safety manual. The second appeared to be a true-crime slasher story, complete with grisly photographs of corpses left in Boston parking lots. The stool pigeons, apparently, had witnessed crimes, turned in the criminals, and been slaughtered for their civic-minded-ness. I set these aside and opened the file with its typed label: GOLDY SCHULZ. The bumper stickers it contained said: Want to Die? and Friends don’t let friends kill themselves.

What in the world?

I flipped carefully through a sheaf of photocopied pages. There was no note, not a single indication of who had sent them. The half-dozen articles in the file were from the Killdeer Courier, the weekly Furman County Register, and the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. Some paragraphs had been highlighted in neon green. I flipped back to the beginning, then cursed softly: Now fingerprinting the pages would be impossible. Then again, a whole slew of librarians had probably already touched the pages. And maybe I was getting a trifle paranoid. Was leaving stuff for somebody else at the library in some way threatening? An invasion of privacy? Could you be booked for impersonating another library patron? I gnawed my cheek while contemplating the true-crime slasher book. Whatever it was, it didn’t make me feel good.