Read Online Death Overdue (Librarian Mysteries) by Mary Lou Kirwin - Free Book Online Page B

but we have become close. I was here to see how I might fit into his life in London.”
    “I expect then that Ms. Burroughs showing up might have put the kibosh on all your plans?”
    I stayed steady. “Not necessarily. You’re assuming that she would have gotten what she wanted.”
    “And what would you have done to prevent that?”
    “Nothing untoward. We would have worked within the legal system.”
    “As you might have gathered, Ms. Nash, we are beginning to suspect that Ms. Burroughs’s death was not accidental. It is looking more and more like someone purposefully pushed the bookcase over on top of her. I won’t go into the details here, but what do you think of that?”
    I started to go cold in my feet. The icy feeling moved upward. I was afraid if it reached my heart, it would just stop. I found myself forced to say, “Caldwell would never do a thing like that. He is a truly gentle man.”
    Blunderstone nodded and shut his folder. “But what about you, Ms. Nash? Could you have done it?”

FIFTEEN

Too Little
    “I ’m sure they think she’s been murdered,” I told Caldwell as soon as I walked in the door. He pulled me to him and held me tight. His warm hug was exactly what I needed. I could feel my breathing slow and my sense of the real world returning. I was where I was supposed to be.
    “Yes, I got that feeling too when I was questioned,” he said after a few moments. “We’ll just have to wait for the inquest. But we have nothing to worry about as neither of us had anything to do with it.”
    As he said that it occurred to me that Caldwell might suspect me of having pushed over the bookcase—like thechief inspector had insinuated. I was the last one in the library, I was the one who was organizing everything, Caldwell wasn’t with me when the bookcase fell.
    I pulled out of his arms and said, “I didn’t do it.”
    He gathered me back in and said, “Of course you didn’t, Karen. I know that. You were sound asleep in our bed when it happened. Plus, why would you want to hurt Sally?”
    “Oh, I can think of lots of reasons: jealousy, fear, anger, money, love.” I counted them off on my fingers. “All the usual reasons for homicide.”
    He took my hands in his and tried to calm me again. “But you didn’t. You’re my logical librarian. You work things out with your intellect, not by taking action and doing violence.”
    He was right. The thought of pushing a bookcase over on someone, even someone I didn’t particularly care for, did make me feel revulsion.
    “If the police are looking seriously at either one of us, it’s me,” Caldwell continued. “The scorned former lover, not wanting her to have any part of the B and B, possibly even hiding some deep, dark secret she held over my head.”
    “A secret?” I asked.
    “I’m just surmising.”
    “Where had you gone that night?” I felt it was time I asked that question as long as we were clearing the air.
    “Oh, my stomach was feeling quite queasy from all thestress of the day, so I went down to have some bicarbonate of soda water to settle it. I was in the kitchen when I heard the bookcase fall.”
    “I’m sorry for even asking you that.”
    “No, don’t be. We need to be truthful and clear with each other. There should be nothing we can’t tell each other.”
    “Well,” I said. “I’m not sad Sally’s dead. I certainly didn’t feel any animosity toward her, although I didn’t like that she was upsetting you. But I’m so sorry it had to happen in your B and B.”
    “Surprisingly, I feel rather sad, not so much for the Sally who appeared in our lives two days ago, but for the Sally I fell in love with ten years ago. She was so full of life. I guess it’s hard to imagine her completely gone.”
    “I know how that feels.”
    He pulled me in tight and we had a gentle kiss. Then he held me away just enough so he could look down at me and say, “Let’s get out of here. I have another shop that’s up for lease that I