Chapter 38 2025
The librarian smiles a grin the sheriff can’t decipher, enigmatic and wry.
They’re in the man’s small, crammed office, every surface strewed with books and Pepsi cans.
He seems like an easygoing guy, but the sheriff knows that’s not the whole of him.
A background check revealed he has a Medal of Honor for his service in the Marines during the Gulf War, along with seven records of sale for the purchase of various handguns.
A Medal of Honor is quite a distinction.
It’s given to soldiers who demonstrate extraordinary acts of gallantry in the face of the enemy, risking their lives above and beyond the call of duty.
The librarian received his while working as part of the security force regiment, a team responsible for protecting vital assets.
He took a bullet to the leg during the assassination attempt of a senator, and he still managed to take out the assailant.
He was honorably discharged after that and came here, to Moosewood, where his sister lives. He became the school’s librarian, a job he’s had nearly thirty years. Beyond his military file, he has no record, not even a parking ticket.
“You knew the reverend?” the sheriff asks as he pops a jelly bean in his mouth. The librarian offered him a bag when he entered the office. The sheriff has always loved jelly beans, a nostalgic taste of childhood.
“I knew him since he was a boy. He was a student here.”
“And what did you think of him?”
Once again, the librarian offers the thin, droll smile before saying plainly, “I couldn’t stand the bastard.”
The sheriff lifts a brow. Over the course of the past week, he’s gotten a fractured picture of the reverend.
To some, he was a beloved man of God, but certainly not to all.
When he interviewed the school’s cooks who had been working the day the reverend went missing, he got the distinct sense they loathed him.
“He was a bugger as a kid,” the librarian says, “mean as spit, and I imagine he was the same as a man.”
“You didn’t know him as an adult?”
“He and Heddy had only just moved back when he went missing, so I was spared the pleasure.”
“So you know Heddy as well?”
“She, I like. She called me the day he went missing.”
“She did?”
“She called to ask if I’d go out and look for him.”
“And did you?”
“I thought about it but decided against it.”
“Because of the blizzard?”
“Because, like I said, the guy was a bastard. I figured whatever trouble he was in he deserved, and if he wasn’t in any trouble and had just gone AWOL, good riddance.”
“So you didn’t see him the day he went missing?”
“Nope.”
The sheriff pauses before asking, “Do you know there’s a hole in the school’s wall that leads to the pond?”
The wry smile twitches. “I did. I learned about it from a student I was fond of a long time ago.”
“And did it occur to you that the reverend might have used the hole to get to the pond the day he disappeared?”
“Like I said, Sheriff, I didn’t give the matter much thought, then or after. But yes, when he surfaced, it did occur to me that’s how he might have gotten there.”
And a thought strikes the sheriff. “Was Heddy the student who told you about the hole, was she the student you were fond of?”
“No. If Heddy knew about the hole, don’t you think she’d have told you about it?”
The sheriff wonders. He thinks back to the conversation he had with her and the shift of her eyes when she discovered her husband had been found in the pond.
“So you knew about the hole,” the sheriff says, “and that the victim of a murder might have used it the day he disappeared, and you suspected it might be relevant to the investigation, and you chose not to come forward?”
“I think that about sums it up.”
“Because you disliked the reverend and were happy he was dead?”
The librarian thinks a second before answering.
“I think happy’s the wrong word. Not upset about it would be more accurate.
Sort of like discovering your least favorite dinner has been taken off the weekly menu.
I wasn’t dancing on his grave, but I was fine with no longer having to see or think about him. ”
Though the sheriff truly doesn’t suspect the man of being involved, he asks, “Can you account for your whereabouts on the day the reverend went missing?”
“I doubt it,” he says, with an eyebrow lift, as if taunting the sheriff to suspect him.
The sheriff bristles. “Do you think this is a joke? A man is dead.”
“No,” the librarian says, the grin dissolving to reveal a glimpse of the heroic soldier beneath the prosaic surface.
“I don’t think it’s a joke, but I do think this interview is ludicrous.
The man died over five months ago, and his body was molting in a cesspool of pond water all that time.
So while I admit I’m mildly entertained at you giving me the third degree, I also know there’s not a chance in hell of you solving this.
I detested the man and easily could have killed him, but kick over a rock, and you’ll turn up a dozen others equally not sorry the bastard’s gone and equally suspect.
Good luck figuring out which one of us pulled the trigger. ”