EIGHT

I clearly hadn’t gotten anywhere with either shop and it appeared to me that no one was going to give Paul West’s ex-wife an opportunity to make good. There was going to have to be a way to get through to these people, only I didn’t know what that was. Maybe being at the library with Abby would distance myself from my thoughts and something would pop into my head.

The library was a typical library. The reference desk was in the middle of the big open room and surrounded by large bookshelves that were labeled with the genre of the section of books. There was a children’s section in the rear. Their small voices and giggles were the only sound in the quiet building.

I found Abby pushing a cart with books stacked a mile high in the non-fiction section.

“I hear you’re making quite a stir around here,” she said.

“I guess I’m going to have to figure something else out on how to get the campground back in shape.” I scanned down the books.

“You just keep on being who you are and they’ll come around. It might take longer than you anticipated to sell the place.” She smiled. “But mark my words, everyone will help out when they see that you are doing the right thing. Me and all the girls know you are.”

“Thank you, but I don’t want to think about that right now.” I put my hand on the cart. “I’m here to work.”

“Have you ever worked in a library?” she asked.

Worked? I wanted to laugh, but her face was so serious that I kept the fact that I’d maybe even used a library a handful of times and that was my high school library.

“No. But I do know how to put books back and these look like they need to go back.” It was a perfect start for me.

“Great.” She checked her watch. “It gives me free time to get story time together.”

“That’s so cute.” I glanced back at the children’s section. “I heard them when I walked in.”

“Unfortunately, we have the children’s section in the back because they like to run away and they usually can’t make it to the door before we can grab them.” She gave a half smile. “Anyways, just let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks, Abby for giving me this chance.” I wanted to make sure that I thanked her.

“It’s nothing.” She brushed it off. “I pulled you some reference books for RV owners and I put them on the counter so you wouldn’t forget.”

“Thank you. You know, I get why people are skeptical of me, but like you said, I’m going to show them differently.” I put my other hand on the cart and pushed it down the aisle she was working in before I’d gotten there.

Abby hurried off and left me to figure it out, though she thought I knew what I was doing. How hard could it be?

After comparing the numbers and the letters, it wasn’t as tough as it looked. I was happy to get the first stack of books put away and got a little sidetracked when I got to the travel section and found a book on Normal.

There were all sorts of photos of Happy Trails in its heyday and the lake. I couldn’t help but wonder if it looked like this when Paul won it in college. He was much older than me and if did the math, say he was twenty-one when he won the bet, he was sixty-one now. That’d been forty-years ago. I remember Alvin Deters’s saying he was in his fifties and wondered if he’d remembered what it looked like. Maybe I could go back and see him and approach him that way. Really get to know him instead of just asking for credit.

“Are you almost done?” Abby pepped around the corner of the travel bookshelf. “Oh, you’ve not finished but one shelf? It’s been an hour.”

“It has?” My jaw dropped. “I’m so sorry. I picked up this book on Normal and just got lost into it.”

I’d heard many times from people how they could get lost in a library for hours. I never understood that until this moment.

“Well, just leave it. You can finish after story hour.” She held out a book and a bag.

“Story hour?” I looked between her and the bag.

“Yeah, it’s fun. I thought you’d enjoy that.” Abby was wrong. By far wrong.

“Kids don’t really like me.” I shrugged.

“Three-fourths of Normal don’t like you either, but you’re still here.” She joked. “Here. You’ll be fine. Just read the book. The craft is a color page today so that’s easy.”

“Craft? Easy? Trust me when I say that I can screw up a color page.” I waved my hands in front of me.

“You’ll be fine.” She jammed the bag in my hand and then the book. “Take it as a lesson. If you can handle the children in Normal, you can handle their parents when you start working on that fundraiser.”

She didn’t leave any room for me to protest as she walked away.

Story time felt like it went longer than thirty minutes. I’d been told several times by the kids that they couldn’t see the pictures as I read, so I quickly learned to hold the book out in front of me and try to read sideways. Then someone said that all the characters sounded the same, so I changed my voice a few times and they laughed, so I kept changing my voice with different characters.

It was the craft coloring page that took me under. Some kids broke the crayons, some kids crumbled the paper, while some just fell asleep. Trying to keep everyone engaged was exhausting.

“Librarian? I never figured you for the type.” The familiar southern drawl snickered from behind me.

“Hank.” I stood up from trying to get one of the children to sit and color. “I mean, Detective Hank.” I gulped. “Detective Sharp.” I looked away when I felt myself blush. “I had to get a job and this . . .”

“This seems to be harder than you thought?” He laughed. “You look frustrated. Let me help.”

I took a step back, “If you think you can do better.”

“Hey kids.” He spoke above their whimpers, giggles, and chatter. “Who would like a police sticker?”

The kids ran screaming towards him with their hands flailing in the air.

“Great. When you finish coloring your paper, bring it to me for a sticker,” he spoke in a gentle and kind tone.

Quickly, the children I’d been trying to get to color along with the rest of the kids hurried back to the miniature tables and were silent as they colored the page.

“I didn’t know I could bribe them.” I smiled. “Thanks for the tip. I need stickers. I’m guessing you aren’t here to check out a book?”

“I’m here to check you out.” He looked at me. I wasn’t sure if that was a pick up line, but he completely clarified. “Not check you out, but talk to you and I heard over at the diner about you going to The Tough Nickel and then you went to see Alvin.”

“Gosh, word sure does travel fast around here.” I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. “Everyone in town thinks I killed Paul.”

“Did you?” He asked.

My head tilted, I glared.

“I cleared all that up with everyone. I told them you didn’t because the preliminary report came back and it appears Paul had been there a few days.” His words were music to my ears only for the fact that it showed I didn’t kill him. “According to the pings on your cell phone,”

“You pinged my cell phone?” My jaw dropped as I interrupted him.

“I got a warrant.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “You weren’t anywhere near Normal.”

“I told you that. But it still upsets me that Paul was murdered. You have a whole town of suspects,” I said and began to rattle off, “Not that I think Ty Randal did it, but he has reason, then you have Henry, who I really don’t think did it, but what about Dottie Swaggert?”

“Hmmm…maybe reading to little kids and being in charge of a trailer park is what you need to stick to,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I drew back.

“It means that you aren’t a detective. I’m only here to let you know that you’re off the hook. You can leave Normal today if you wanted.” He looked down when a little child walked up and tugged on his pants with their scribbled page done.

“I’m not leaving Normal,” I spat. “I’m staying and I’m going to fix up Happy Trails.”

“Really?” He looked all sorts of not happy and a little shocked rolled up into one. He took out some of those stickers he’d promised the kids and doled them out to the little hands like candy.

“Yes. Really.” I confirmed and took a few more coloring pages as he gave them the sticker.

“I just figured you’d go back to your old life.” He apparently didn’t listen to me last night after I told him why I was in Normal.

That tip of my eye started to twitch and the anger boiled inside of me.

“You figured?” I questioned.

“Are you mad that I thought you’d leave?” He questioned, his voice a little louder. “It’s not every day that someone with your social status decides to live in a run-down camper in a rural Kentucky town they know nothing about. Unless you do know more about Kentucky than you’re letting on.”

“I see that you’ve been snooping in my background, which was a lifetime ago. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Hank,” I put an emphasis on his name, “but I own a campground that needs to be fixed up. I’m sorry that you figured wrong about me and my intention to stay in town.”

I left out the fact that I had no place to go or zero cash to do it with. Normal was all I had and he came along with it whether I liked him or not. Because currently, I wasn’t liking him.

He took a step back.

“According to my sources, your family perished in a horrific house fire and you survived. There was talk about how you got out and not everyone else.” He brought back memories that taken a lot of therapy and money to get rid of. “Then you had to live with foster families up until you turned eighteen.” His eyes lowered as did his voice, “Why is it that you’re really here in Normal?”

“Listen,” I lowered my voice when I noticed there were no children in the children’s section and Abby had peeked her head around the corner. “As much as you and everyone in town would like to believe, I don’t have a caring bone in my body, I do. I want to help out the people in Normal and I’m going to prove it. You didn’t hear a word I said to you last night, did you?”

I tried not to even comment on what he’d said about my past.

“I didn’t listen because I was busy making sure you had electricity.” His southern charm turned on and I tried to assess if he did it on purpose or if just came naturally.

“Recap.” I put my hand up for him to stop talking. “My only home is that RV and Happy Trails. Yes. My entire family died in a house fire. It was awful, but not as bad as being thrown from one foster family to the next. I got out of Kentucky and I’m sorry if it’s not the grand place everyone thinks it is, because it’s not fond for me.”

I sucked in a deep breath and stuck my hand up when he opened his mouth.

“Now that you know I’m not a suspect, I’m going to try my hardest to make Happy Trails what it used to be. It might take me years, but I’m here and I’m going to do it. I’m terribly upset about what Paul did to the citizens in Normal. Whether you want to believe it or not, I never will excuse Paul for what he did, but he didn’t deserve what someone did to him either.”

“Are you trying to tell me that not only are you staying here, but you’re not going to stop snooping around with this list of suspects you have in your head?” He questioned.

“It means that I’m going to try to make everything right. If that means making good on the people he wronged here in Normal while trying to figure out who killed him. . .” I hesitated, “Yeah. That’s what that means.”

We stood there in silence staring at each other. He opened his mouth and shut it a couple of times like he wanted to say something to me. It appeared I’d stumped him and he didn’t have the words. As he did this little internal battle with himself, the words that’d come out of my mouth about how I was going to make everything really did start to settle into my soul.

Then it dawned on me. I wasn’t here to just to get Happy Trails back to the way it was, but to make everything right with everyone in Normal. That also included Paul and what happened to him.

“Here’s the book for the next book club.” Abby handed me a worn out paperback book that was kept together with duct tape.

“I’ve got to get going.” Hank gave me one last long hard look before he turned around and walked out of the library.

“I don’t read.” I reluctantly took the book and curled it to my chest as I thought about Ty Randal and his situation.

He was the first person I was going to see in the matter of who did Paul in.