“It’s seven o’clock. Time to get him out here.”
Nancy looked toward the wooden door of the tiny Circulation Office where mystery writer Barley O’Day was waiting to address the group. “He needs an introduction,” she said.
“Then introduce him.” Harry gestured toward the small crowd gathered in the Reading Room at the Mann Memorial Library. “People are waiting.”
There were less than twenty people scattered amongst the three circular tables crammed into the small room, but that was a gigantic crowd for the Mannic Mystery Society that normally gathered with only four or five people every other Wednesday night. This was quite a coup for the Society, the library, and for Mann Township, and Nancy had no qualms about taking the credit. She had made the proposal to approach O’Day, whose newest book was coming out this month. She had handled all the correspondence setting it up. She had arranged the funding. And she had brought O’Day here from the bus station and ushered him through the back door, secreting him in the office where he now waited for an introduction.
She stood. “Ladies and Gentleman, may I have your attention?”
Before the group completely quieted down, the door to the Circulation Office swung open and Barley O’Day ran out, waving his arms and screaming like he were being pursued by a demon. He wore the brown overcoat that he had been wearing when Nancy met him at the bus station. It engulfed him, flapping against his calves as he ran. A wool cap was pulled low over his head flattening his thick black hair. He dashed across the front of the room where a lectern had been set up next to a table that was covered with his books, and he went into the main room of the library.
Nancy felt shackled in place.
Harry reacted first, rising and running from the room. “Where did he go?” he shouted at the door.
“Out front,” someone responded.
The Reading Room finally came alive with noise and activity, just as Nancy was finally able to move. She hurried after Harry.
A handful of patrons in the normally subdued library shouted and pointed. Though the room was well lit, the high ceilings of the tiny former church seemed to darken the place, making it almost morguelike. Two people stabbed at the main doors like children pointing out a giraffe in the zoo. Gordy Jones, slouched at the computer terminal set up on a long table where people checked out their books, shuddered like he had just awakened from a deep sleep. Priscilla Farman, wearing her home-made security guard uniform, had been shoved to the floor from her stool by the door and was just now struggling to her feet.
Nancy continued across the library and pushed out the wooden door. Harry stood on the concrete walkway that had been cleared of snow and heavily salted earlier this evening. The bright streetlight on Franklin Road along with the powerful light over the front library entrance brightened the outdoor scene. Because of the recent snow storm, the two-lane road was quiet. Lights from Harvey’s Diner, about a quarter mile to the east, were visible through the leafless trees, but the rest of the area was dark. Across from the library entrance, Jo Jo’s Market, the only market in the township, was closed for the night, its parking lot dotted with a few cars of patrons who came to the library.
Harry was pointing toward the fenced in yard just to the side of the walkway. Nancy saw the footprints in the snow. Someone had dashed about ten feet into the field. There the footprints ended beside the long brown coat that O’Day had been wearing. The wool hat was crumpled beside it. There was no sign of O’Day.
Harry turned to Nancy and held his hands spread, palms upward. He looked into the night sky as if expecting to see a spaceship. At the sound of a car door slamming, he turned toward the dirt and gravel parking lot on the other side of the library. After a few moments, a slender man in a flimsy jacket appeared. “You see what happened?” Harry asked him.
“Huh?” In front of the door the man stood confused, looking in all directions. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you see anything?” Harry pointed toward the footprints in the snow, but the man didn’t seem to understand. “Did you see anybody run out of the library?”
“I’m late for the speech,” he said. “Missed the damn train. Had to rent a car.” He pointed toward the library while looking at Nancy. “Is Mr. O’Day inside?”
Nancy could only stare at the man.
“I’m his assistant,” he said. “He’s going to be furious with me.” He seemed ready to cry.
“He’s gone,” Nancy said.
“What?”
“He ran out and disappeared.” She circled to the small parking lot that was on the other side of the library, away from the field where O’Day disappeared. It was snow covered and rutted with tire tracks from the few cars that had pulled in. She saw William Garrihan, the founder of the Mannic Mystery Society, step out of his small car and slap his cane onto the snow.
He was late, but she knew he was angry at her and hadn’t even expected him to show up tonight. He was originally supposed to be the one giving a speech tonight, but she had replaced him with O’Day.
William snarled at her and strode to the door.
“Did you see anything?” she asked him.
He ignored her and entered the library.
She spun back to Harry who was still studying the sky. “What the heck happened to O’Day?”
***
Nancy kept taking deep breaths to control sudden attacks of both tears and rage. “We can’t have this kind of scandal. Not when we’re so close to getting the Peelman Grant.” The publicity around the appearance of a big-time author like Barley O’Day was going to save the Mann Memorial Library. And it would certainly help the dying town. At least, that had been her plan. That’s what she used in her pitch to the three-member Library Board in order to suck a few hundred from each of them to pay for O’Day’s visit. The library could use the publicity, she had argued. Their initial endowment had disappeared long ago, and fewer people were using the facility. The township could barely afford to run the streetlights, let alone donate to the library. Nancy had hoped O’Day’s appearance would stir interest and draw some donations. Maybe even bring some outside investment to Mann Township before every last building on Franklin Road was abandoned just like Farrell’s General Store and the Candy Shoppe had been in the last year.
“Of course,” Gordy Jones said. His eyes always drooped like he were falling asleep. “But my question is what happened to this guy, O’Day. I’ll do what I can to find out.”
“I know you want to help,” she said. “But the State Police are investigating. They haven’t found anything.”
He made a snorting sound and looked away from her desk. Years ago, Gordy had failed the test when he applied for a position with the State Police. He ended up working at Harvey’s Diner and volunteering at the library. “I’m certain I can be more successful.”
“His publisher has hired a private agency to look into it, too.”
He continued snorting.
“Anyway, I’m more concerned about the library’s reputation,” she said.
“I’m sure the library’s reputation will be fine. In fact, the publicity may help us. Let’s face it. We’re in the middle of nowhere here. Nobody even knows about this town, let alone our great library. Maybe this building will become a tourist attraction.”
That was silly, she thought, but she didn’t tell him that.
“Let me ask around,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Sure.” She decided he read too many mystery novels. “If you want.”
“Where did you pick up this guy O’Day on the night of the meeting?”
“At the bus station.”
“Just him? No assistant or anything?”
“No. Just him. He said his assistant missed the train. I drove him right here.” It was about fifteen minutes to the bus station. O’Day had taken the train to Williamsport and the bus to Mann Township.
“What time did you get back here?”
“About six-thirty. I escorted him to the office through the back door. I didn’t want him mixing with any patrons until the presentation.”
“You talk much?”
“He was polite, I guess. But we didn’t talk much. To be honest, he seemed a little cranky, like he didn’t really want to be here. He told me he didn’t like to be bothered by annoying fans. So I didn’t say too much, and when I brought him here I took him through the back door so nobody would bother him.”
That annoying snort again, and a blink of his droopy eyes. “How about the assistant? He finally show up?”
“He got to the library just after O’Day disappeared. Had to rent a car to drive from New York. He wasn’t too happy.” She had learned his name was Doyle Thurman, a young man whose frustrating day had worn him to the point of exhaustion. He looked haggard and beaten and obviously worried about what his bosses were going to do to him. He almost cried when he found out he had to book a room at the Dew Drop Inn, the only motel for miles around, and stay in Mann Township until this got straightened out.
***
Nancy never drank anything stronger than iced tea, yet here she was, sitting at the Mann Tavern with Harry, sipping on a drink she had never heard of.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked.
Her vision blurred as she looked over the rim of her glass. Harry seemed far away, his voice distorted. “You have to ask? I’m worried about the library.”
“The library will be fine.” He lifted his own glass and took a brief sip. “This is exactly the kind of thing we need here in Mann. It’s what we talked about when you made your pitch for O’Day, remember? Well, it’s working. Did you know that CNN and the New York Times sent reporters to the town hall?”
“I didn’t know that.” She recalled Gordy’s words about publicity.
“You’re too busy sweating about O’Day’s disappearance. No big deal. You don’t understand the publicity game.”
“Something terrible happened in our backyard. I understand that.”
“Something happened all right. But not something terrible. Face it. O’Day probably staged this whole thing. Publicity for his new book.”
Her eyes popped open so wide that her head hurt. She wiped her palm across her brow and tried to take a deep breath. Instead, she coughed.
“It’s not even been a week,” Harry said. “But I heard that advance sales for ‘A Day of Madness’ have tripled. You can’t tell me this wasn’t a publicity stunt.”
“But his publisher is frantic. They hired a private agency to look into it.”
“More publicity. Believe me. O’Day is probably vacationing on a Caribbean island drinking Mai Tais.”
Nancy shuddered. She certainly didn’t understand the publicity game.
She noticed Gordy Jones standing behind Harry. “How do you think he did it?” he asked.
“Huh?” Harry spun, almost spilling his drink.
“If you think he staged his disappearance, how do you think he did it?”
Harry gave a slight sneer. “I don’t know. You’re the guy who thinks he’s Agatha Christie. You tell me.”
He turned slightly. “Perhaps I will. But not right now.” He moved off.
“What a goof!” Harry sneered.
Suddenly Gordy pivoted back. “Did you see Mr. O’Day in the circulation office before he disappeared?”
“No. Nancy took him in through the outside entrance. He never came out until he started screaming like a banshee.”
Gordy kept nodding his head like it was bobbing on a string. He started to turn away but stopped again. “And the assistant? Mr. Thurman?”
Harry looked confused.
“That was the guy we saw in the parking lot,” Nancy said.
“Oh.” Harry reached for his glass. “When we told him that his boss had disappeared he mumbled something about having to call his publisher and rushed back to his car. He looked terrified. Poor guy is probably going to lose his job.”
“When you ran outside after O’Day, you didn’t see anything?”
“No.”
“You didn’t see him at all?”
“No. When I got outside there was no sign of him.”
“Did you check the parking lot?”
“That’s where that assistant came from. And William. Nobody saw anything.”
***
Nancy had a headache when she arrived at the library the next morning, but she remained in the main room, watching the patrons who milled about. There were more than a normal day, she noted, and there were lots of faces she didn’t recognize. She had been head librarian now for ten years, long enough for her to realize that there was going to be no other life for her, and more than enough time to know all the regulars. She sadly realized that she kept seeing the same faces over and over again, almost like they were family. A very small family. Her only family.
But today was different.
“Mrs. Halpern?”
She turned to the thin dark-haired man who carried a cane that he never seemed to use. But for his gaunt face, shriveled like he hadn’t eaten for days, he could pass for a teen ager. “Yes, William?” Garrihan was a member of the Board of Governors, a fancy name for the three friends who ran the library. He was also loved mystery stories and had two unpublished novels of his own that he was trying to get an agent interested in.
He moved toward to her, using his cane to nudge her closer to the stack of books. “That detective talked to me yesterday.”
“Detective?” She was taken aback by the anger in his voice. “The one from the publisher?”
“No. Gordy Jones. The one who thinks he’s a detective. He says you hired him.”
She smiled. “I didn’t hire him. He said he would ask a few questions. I felt there was no harm in that. We all would like to know what happened.”
“Jones said we should call a special meeting of the Society and discuss what happened. He says we work on solving mysteries all the time.”
“Sure. In books.”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“He might be right about that,” she said with a slight grin.
“Invite the police, and the papers, too. The publicity might help us.”
More people concerned with publicity, she thought. “But didn’t anyone else talk to you?”
He rapped the cane on the floor. “A Statie talked to me a little bit. But I don’t know anything. I was late getting here. You saw me. I didn’t arrive until after all the excitement.”
She glanced to the floor. “I wasn’t sure you were going to come at all, William. I’m sorry. I knew you were angry with me because I kind of took over and set up the presentation.” He hadn’t spoken to her since she made the proposal to bring O’Day to the library.
“Yes,” he said with a slight cough. “But I’m a big boy, and I got over it. I realized I should attend. After all, I founded the Society. Getting a big-name mystery writer was good publicity for us. It might even help this dying town. Help us all. I should have realized that right away. You were right to bring O’Day here.”
“Thank you.”
“But now I’m worried.”
“Why?”
He thumped his cane lightly. “I told Gordy we better find out what happened pretty soon or the library might be facing a law suit.”
“Why?” Nancy pressed her fingertips to her lips.
“New York publishers have a lot of money. And they like to get lawyers involved.”
“But they wouldn’t—” But she squeezed off the words. Maybe they would.
Nancy realized that no one from the publisher had spoken to her. Were they waiting for their lawyers to get involved? Blaming the library for this?
She felt her fingers start to tremble. Maybe this wasn’t going to be the financial boon she had hoped for.
The publishers had said they had hired an investigator, but then, where was he? Maybe Harry was right. Maybe it was all publicity for the book.
A lawsuit, too?
“Mrs. Halpern?” Someone else calling her this time. She turned and saw Gail Zaklukewicz beckoning her from the checkout desk. Gail was another member of the Mannic Mystery Society and an almost daily visitor to the library. “Did you hear the news?” She pointed toward a small iPad she had set on the desk. “They found O’Day.”
“What?”
“In the woods by the bus station. He’d been strangled.”
***
Gordy Jones stood in the center of the tiny Circulation Office. The room was so crowded he could only rotate in place as he spoke. Nancy sat behind the wooden desk and Gail stood next to her. Harry was sitting against the door leading to the Reading Room.
William leaned against the narrow bookshelf against the back wall and fingered his cane like a stand-up bass guitar. He said, “I call this meeting of the Mannic Mystery Society to order.” His booming voice demanded silence. “However, this evening we are not here to discuss one of our favorite books as we normally do. No, today we hope to use our expertise to determine what happened here the other night.” He looked at a tall man in a State Police uniform who stood next to Harry and held his broad brimmed gray hat before him with both hands. “I have invited representatives of law enforcement.” He looked directly across the room to a woman who stood behind Nancy and worked with a small recorder set on the corner of the desk. “And the press.” She was from the Weekly Mann Township News.
Unfortunately, Nancy thought, the New York Times was no longer interested.
Finally, William pointed to Gordy Jones. “You may proceed.”
“Thank you,” Gordy said with a formal nod. “We are all intelligent people here. We are all readers of mysteries. I say we put our heads together and figure this out. We all know that Barley O’Day ran from this office, through the library, and disappeared into the night.” He pointed at the State Trooper who was about to speak. “I know his body was found a few miles away in the woods near the bus station.” He gave a thin smile. “We’ll get to how that happened later. But first, let’s deal with what happened here. The disappearance. Harry thinks it was a publicity stunt. If it was, how did he do it?”
“It wasn’t a publicity stunt,” said a gruff woman with broad shoulders and a mid-calf length skirt. She sat in a folding chair against the wall near the door leading out of the building. She was an editor from O’Day’s publisher and sat beside Doyle Thurman who kept his hands clasped between his thighs as he rocked slightly.
“Obviously not,” Jones said. “Considering he ended up dead. But O’Day did disappear from this library and was found several miles away in a wooded field by the bus station.”
Gail said, “I don’t think he disappeared from here. I think he was already dead.”
“I agree,” Nancy said. “The more I thought about what happened, the more I suspected that whoever ran out of the Circulation Office, it wasn’t O’Day.”
After several cries, William called for order.
“Why do you say that?” Gordy asked.
“The hair didn’t seem right. When I met him at the bus station he had long black hair. Whoever ran out of this office, his hair wasn’t as dark. And the wool hat covered most of it. Hiding it. And he was a little taller, too. I remembered Mr. O’Day’s overcoat dragging on the floor when I met him at the bus station. But the other night.” She stopped.
“I agree,” Gordy said. “How tall would you say Mr. O’Day was?”
“I’m five eight,” she said. “He’s maybe five ten.”
He looked at the editor, and she nodded.
“And the person who ran out of here, maybe closer to six feet. Yes, I’m pretty sure Mr. O’Day was already dead when someone ran out of the office Wednesday night. The footprints were already in the snow at seven o’clock when the speech was to begin. Someone walked carefully out into the yard, then just as carefully retraced their steps. Given enough time, that could be done. No one noticed the footprints, because there was no reason to notice them. You walk up the sidewalk into the library. That’s all. Then, the person who made those footprints circled behind the library and reentered this office through the back door.” Jones pointed at the narrow wooden door where Thurman sat. “He killed O’Day and hid the body. He put on the brown coat and ran screaming from the office. He pushed Priscilla to the floor as he ran outside to give himself some time to complete the illusion. He threw the coat and hat into the yard and disappeared back behind the building before Mr. Finnegan got outside.” He pointed at Harry as if seeking agreement, and Harry thoughtfully nodded.
The State Trooper said, “There wasn’t enough time. The killer couldn’t have driven to the bus station, dumped the body and gotten back here.”
Gordy snorted slightly. “I didn’t say he took the body to the bus station. Not then, anyway. He hid the body, probably in his car, staged the disappearance, then later drove to the bus station.”
“So, the man who ran out of this office and disappeared into the night was not O’Day?”
“No. That man is your killer.” As he said that he looked at Thurman, O’Day’s assistant who had supposedly missed the train.
Thurman showed no reaction at all.
The editor beside him stiffened.
Jones continued. “Mr. Thurman purposely missed the train from New York so he would arrive separately. After Nancy took Mr. O’Day into this office, Thurman arrived and carefully placed footprints in the snow. Then he contacted Mr. O’Day and came in through the back door.” Again, he pointed to the door. “He killed him and dragged his body out to the parking lot and put it in his trunk. He returned here and pretended to be Mr. O’Day and staged the disappearance. After throwing the coat and hat into the snow, he circled back to his car and pretended to be just arriving.” He looked at Nancy. “You met him outside the library, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He was wearing a thin jacket, inappropriate for the weather, correct?”
“Yes.” She looked at Thurman still sitting quietly, his head bowed. The policeman was now beside him. “But one that wouldn’t be noticeable under the heavier coat.”
“Precisely.”
“But why?” Nancy asked.
Jones waited for Thurman to speak, but he remained silent. “Because for the last five years, Mr. Thurman has been writing the ‘Day’ mysteries. He was tired of being denied credit.”
Thurman’s head suddenly popped up. “And being belittled by that arrogant snob.” He sniffed like he had been crying. “I hated his guts. But I didn’t kill him.”
“But you did kill him,” Jones said. “You came directly to the library in your car. After Nancy took him inside, you planted footprints in the snow. Then you went around the back of the building and got O’Day to let you in. You talked him into coming out to your car where you killed him. Then you returned through the back door. Nancy was making sure no one went into the office. She thought she was protecting a writer’s privacy. You ran out screaming, wearing his long coat and cap. After you threw them into the snow, you circled around to the parking lot and waited a few minutes before making your appearance is if you just arrived.”
Thurman was shaking his head through her entire speech. “I swear to you, I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t about to kill the golden goose that was feeding me and my family.”
Nancy stood behind the desk and slowly moved in front of Jones. “I locked the outside door. How did Thurman get in?”
“O’Day let him in. He worked for him, after all.”
Nancy moved in front of Thurman. “How tall are you?”
He gave a disinterested shrug.
“Please, Stand up.”
He looked at the editor who nodded at him and he stood. He was about the same height as Nancy. “Too short,” she said. O’Day is much taller than he is. That full-length coat would have been sweeping the floor.” She glanced over her shoulder at Jones. “Thurman couldn’t have pretended to be O’Day. He wasn’t the man who ran out of this room.” She straightened again and looked at William who was slouched against the back wall as if hiding his size. “You’re about the same height as Mr. O’Day. Your hair is dark, though not as black as his. But the wool hat was pulled down on your head.”
William rapped his cane against the floor, the cane that he never seemed to use, the cane that he didn’t really need.
“You were late getting to the library,” Nancy said. “You didn’t arrive until after the disappearance. Why?”
“I told you. I wasn’t sure I was going to attend.”
She shook her head. “No, that was a ruse. You saw him at the train station, didn’t you? You badgered him about one of your books. That’s why he was cranky when I saw him. He said he didn’t want fans approaching him.”
He looked at Thurman, then sneered at Jones, and finally looked at the State Trooper who had set his hat down and now tapped his waist where his gun was strapped. “Yeah, I met him at the train station before he got on the bus to the township,” he said. “I told him about the book I was writing. You’ve got to understand, I was just thinking of this library and this township. I figured the publicity would be terrific for us. Imagine if I got some publishers interested in my work. The publicity for the library. Imagine if O’Day backed me.” He paused and dropped his cane. “Too old fashioned, he said. Publishers weren’t interested in classic locked room mysteries anymore. Then he laughed at me. He said people were always coming up to him with crazy ideas.
“Later, I came here. I let myself into the office and approached him one last time. I told him I was trying to help the library. He started snapping at me. I hit him.” He pointed to his cane that lay on the tile floor. “Then I realized what kind of opportunity had fallen into my lap. I dragged him out to my car and strangled him. I locked him in the trunk.” He looked at the State trooper. “Later, I dumped his body by the bus station. But first, I planted the footprints and came through the back door into this office. I made Mr. Jack O’Day, world famous mystery writer, disappear.” He grinned and bobbed his head. “And now the Manic Mystery Society and the Mann Township Public Library will be famous.” He smiled at Nancy. “Think of the publicity. My novels will be printed. I will be famous.”
Robert Petyo’s stories have appeared in small press magazines and on the web most recently at “Yellow Mama,” “Spinetingler,” and “Flash Bang Mysteries,” in “Pulp Modern” magazine and in the anthology “Beautiful Lies, Painful Truths.”
In his other life, he is happily married and has three grown children. He lives in northeastern Pennsylvania, is recently retired from the US Postal Service and enjoys playing with his adorable grandson. He can be reached at petyo@ptd.net.
