An Open Book Part 1

AN OPEN BOOK.

by Sheila Connolly.

Blue had always been Edith Hathaway's favorite color. But I don't think she would have chosen it as a skin color.

Edith lay on her back in a drift of snow, some old, some newly fallen, looking as though she was taking a nap-except her eyes were half-open, and so was her mouth. There were snowflakes on her lashes. The snow created blue shadows; I could see my breath. Edith was blue, and I couldn't see any sign of breath from her.

I'd been taking a brisk walk along a two-mile circuit outside of town, something I do whenever I can pry enough time free from my schedule. I live in a rural part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where the gently rolling hills are broken up with stands of old-growth trees. Here and there were st.u.r.dy old stone houses, most with a trickle of smoke emerging from their chimneys. For the holidays the owners added electric candles in all the windows, their very restrained salute to the season. Over the years I'd settled on a favorite route, one that challenged me but didn't demand too much effort.

I try to walk rain or s.h.i.+ne, although today I'd had to keep postponing it because of errands and such, and now it was approaching dusk. But I'd really felt a need to move freely and breathe deeply, and besides, I knew the views were lovely as the sun sank. I love this time of day, particularly in winter: everything seems sharp and clear, the black branches of the trees, shorn of leaves, silhouetted against the sky. I know the path well, so I wasn't worried about stumbling around as the light faded, although I carried a cell phone just in case. Finding a dead body hadn't been on the "just in case" list, however, much less finding the body of someone I knew.

Edith was a regular patron at our town library. The library has only two librarians on payroll, one an administrator, the other a children's librarian, and the rest of the staffing was made up of volunteers. I'm one of them: school psychologist for the local school district by day, but some nights and weekends I work the desk in the library, which is far less demanding than my day job. The system works for our town; Strathmere, Pennsylvania, population 2,563, boasts a surprisingly high percentage of overeducated people, most of whom commute to Philadelphia to work. Luckily most of them believe in giving back to their community (at least in service if not in taxes), so the library has no trouble finding people to staff the checkout desk. Besides, we'd rather spend the money on new books, or more and more often, new eBooks, than on librarian salaries. In addition, the library serves as an informal community center, where people swap genteel gossip. Our library is Information Central in more ways than one.

The library has an outstanding collection of mysteries, both vintage and new (most of the acquisitions budget goes to those purchases), and that was how I had gotten to know Edith. I would have known her much earlier if I had grown up in Strathmere. She had taught fourth grade here for decades, and had retired only when her hip could no longer take the long hours spent standing. Still, she wasn't "old"; erect of carriage, silver of hair, she was a regular sight in Strathmere, walking to and from the shops in town. At the library, on her regular circuit, she usually borrowed at least three mysteries a week, and returned them promptly, often with a comment that she had figured out who the villain was before she reached the midpoint of the book.

I looked around for a place to perch, thinking I should avoid trampling on evidence, if there was evidence to be found, of course. Had Edith been the victim of foul play? The whole idea seemed absurd, and on first glance there was no reason to think so. She lay in a natural-looking position, neither sprawling nor formally laid out. There was no sign of blood, no knife protruding from her chest, no crater marring her crisply permed curls. She looked at peace. And to the best of my memory, there hadn't been a murder in town in . . . decades, if ever. I could remember a bank robbery a few years earlier, but the robber hadn't even made it to the town limits-he'd been shocked that our police officers had actually drawn their guns on him, and gave up without a fight. The worst crime recently had been the failure of several dog owners to clean up after their pets.

But I happened to know that Edith lived on the far side of town, near the library, which was at least two miles away. Since she'd had a hip replaced a couple of years earlier, it was highly unlikely that she had walked all the way over here, especially with snow threatening-there had been brief squalls earlier in the afternoon, which had left a dusting of new snow over old. Moreover, she disdained physical exercise, at least the unladylike, sweaty kind, even though her surgeon had recommended it. She had compromised by agreeing to walk to the library every day or two, carrying her book. But that was three blocks on a nicely paved and level sidewalk, not over snowy hill and dale.

I looked carefully at her, so that I would remember the details. She was wearing her winter coat, a nice navy-blue wool one I'd seen many times before. No hat, but a hand-knit scarf in heathery purple tones, and good leather gloves. No purse. She had on what used to be called sensible-lady boots, but they were a far cry from hiking boots. What was wrong with this picture? Edith Hathaway simply did not belong dead in the midst of the idyllic rural winter scene.

I finally found a convenient fallen tree on the opposite side of the path, sat down, and pulled out my cell phone. Of course I knew the number for town hall: the single building in the center of town housed all of our munic.i.p.al functions-not just the town government but also the police and fire departments, and the library. It had been that way for at least a century, and since the population hadn't grown much, there was no reason to change the building now, although new lines for Internet and other modern communications had been installed a decade ago. I punched in the number. Luckily it wasn't yet five o'clock, and our trusty town receptionist, Mona, was still on duty.

"Hi, Mona. Is the chief in?"

"Hi, Sarabeth. Let me check." I knew it wouldn't take her long, since the reception area was about ten feet from the police department headquarters. Rather than transferring the call, Mona could stand up and peer into Police Headquarters-which was a pretty grand name for a bull pen that measured about twenty feet square, plus one gla.s.sed-in office for the chief, Vanessa Hutchins. Van and I had been friends since shortly after I moved to Strathmere and I started volunteering at the library. In a small town, you got friendly fast with the people you saw every few days. Van had a tiny staff, and with no more than two officers on duty at any time, the department didn't need any more s.p.a.ce than that corner of town hall. There was no jail, and only two official cars, which the street officers swapped between s.h.i.+fts.

Mona was back on the line quickly and said, "I'll put you through, Sarabeth." Thirty seconds later Vanessa picked up. "Hey, Sarabeth. What do you need? I was just about to head out-quiet day. Bet everyone's at the mall returning their Christmas presents."

"Sorry, Van, but it's going to get less quiet. I just found Edith Hathaway, and she's dead."

There was a moment of stunned silence on Vanessa's end. "That's terrible. What were you doing at her house? Delivering the latest Lisa Scottoline?"

"Uh, not exactly. She's not at home. She's lying in the snow on top of a hill, about two miles from the center of town."

"What? Where?" Vanessa knew Edith too, and immediately understood how surprising that was.

I looked around, trying to find a landmark Van would recognize. "I was out walking, so I'm not near a road. I'd say I'm about half a mile uphill behind the Johnson house, and the same distance from Pennsbury Street."

"Shoot," Vanessa muttered. "Why couldn't she have made it easy? It's going to be a bear to get people up there, and to get her out, and it'll be dark before too much longer. What the heck was she doing way out there?"

"Got me. I don't think she walked." I looked around for footprints but saw none in the light sprinkling of snow except my own.

"Let me think . . ." Van fell silent. She was a good cop, and a good person. A local girl who'd grown up in town. There wasn't a whole lot of compet.i.tion for the position of police chief in a town this size-the pay was low, but so was the crime rate, which limited chances of moving on to a better position-so the town council had happily approved her when she said she wanted the job. "Okay, here's what we'll do," Van finally said. "Since the techs can't possibly get there until after dark, I want you to describe the scene for me, and I'll write it down. First of all, are you sure she's dead?"

If Van could see her, she wouldn't ask, but it seemed kind of rude to send such an unflattering photo of Edith by cell phone. "Well, she's blue, and she's not breathing. I didn't go looking for a pulse or anything. I mean, the poor woman is eighty-four-if she'd decided to come out here and take a nap, she wouldn't have lasted long." But how on earth had she gotten out here? And why? Edith had shunned the glories of nature, particularly when they were covered with snow.

"You don't have to get sarcastic on me, Sarabeth," Van rebuked me. "I'll attribute it to stress. Okay, give me a quick description of what you see, and then take some pictures. Your cell phone does have a camera, doesn't it?"

"It does." It had been a birthday present from my husband, Henry, who really liked high-tech toys. This thing had options I couldn't even identify, much less use. I would have been happy with a simple phone that made and received calls, period, but Henry had looked so pleased with himself when he gave it to me that I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't need all the bells and whistles. I wondered if I'd tell him what I'd used it for today. I could already hear his gloating "I told you!" "But I'd better hurry. What do you need to know?"

"You said the only thing you're near is that walking path, right?"

"Yes. I don't generally see a lot of people on it, but plenty of people know about it, and it's not hard to find."

"Footprints?"

"Nope, at least not around Edith. All I see right now are mine. There were some squalls a little while ago, maybe around four, so whatever happened had to have been before that."

"Is there snow on her?"

"Just a bit. Could have been blown there, rather than fallen-it's windy up here. It's not like she's covered in it."

"Okay, whatever happened, happened around the time the snow stopped, maybe a couple of hours ago. Is it still windy there?"

I looked around. The day had reached that moment when the sun was slipping below the horizon, and everything was still. There had been a slight breeze earlier when I'd left the house. "Not now. "

"Hmm-so it won't be much different when the crew gets there. Sarabeth, when was the last time you saw Edith? Alive, I mean?"

"Last night about six, when she picked up the book she'd requested from interlibrary loan. She stopped by the library before dinner."

"Anything out of the ordinary then? Did she seem depressed, or excited?"

I thought back. "Nope, she was the same as she always was. We chatted for a few minutes about the book she was returning. She hadn't liked it, thought the killer was too obvious from the beginning. I agreed with her." Edith's mind had definitely been as sharp as ever, and so had her tongue-she'd had some derisive comments to make about the book she'd returned.

"She didn't mention any plans? No visitors? No trips out of town?"

"She said she was having a pork chop and applesauce for dinner, and she was looking forward to curling up with the new book afterwards. That was about it." Edith still had all her own teeth and was proud of it, and the pork chop reference was her sly way of mentioning it.

"No sign of a weapon, or obvious injuries on her body?"

"Not that I can see. Of course, the weapon could be under her. If there is one."

"You think maybe it was natural causes?" Vanessa said hopefully.

"I'd prefer to think so, but what was she doing up here? Look, Van, it's getting pretty cold. For all I know, somebody could have blasted her with a bazooka and then put her coat on her and covered it up, but I'm not about to turn her over to check. You coming out here? And bringing some help?"

Vanessa sighed. "Yeah, I guess. I'd better call the coroner, and somebody from the state forensics lab and tell them they'll be working late. And tell them how to get to her. Poor Edith. I really thought she'd outlast us all."

"I know what you mean. You want me to stay here and wait for you?"

"Are you in any danger of frostbite?"

"I don't think so. I dressed for the walk. But hurry it up, will you? Henry's cooking something special tonight." Henry had really gotten into haute cuisine recently, and was using me as a guinea pig. I like to cook, but if he wanted to take over now and then, it was fine with me. Although I was still trying to explain to him that he didn't have to use every pot and pan that we owned to produce a simple dinner for two, especially given that he usually stuck me with the cleanup.

"Give me half an hour." Van hung up.

I got up and stamped my feet for a while, to keep the blood flowing in that direction, while avoiding looking at Edith. Then I called Henry. "Hey, I'm going to be a little late. Will that spoil our dinner plans?"

"Hey, SB. No, no problem. It's a daube de boeuf, and I didn't get it into the oven until late. Besides, the longer it cooks, the better it will be. What's up?"

"Uh, I can't talk about it now, but I should be home in an hour or so and I'll fill you in then. Love you."

"Me too."

Henry's a peach. Twenty years of marriage, one brilliant and adorable offspring now safely ensconced in the college of her choice, and we were still best friends. I know how rare that is. And it turned out he could cook-who knew? Too bad he wasn't much of a reader, but who needs perfection?

I snapped a few pictures with my phone, but I wasn't sure they'd help much-I hadn't used the fancy photo option more than a couple of times, and I was worried about the low light, plus draining the phone's battery if it used the flash. I was doing jumping jacks to keep warm when I saw Van's car pull over and stop beside the two-lane road below. She'd probably leave it there, lights flas.h.i.+ng, so the crew that would follow would see it. She climbed out of the car and looked around, then, seeing me, she waved. I waved back and sat down on my log, tucking my hands under my arms. She began plodding her way up the hill through the six inches of acc.u.mulated snow to where I was sitting. She was panting by the time she arrived.

"Why couldn't Edith have been found in a nice convenient-and warm-place?" she asked plaintively.

"That's what I keep asking myself," I replied. "She wouldn't deliberately inconvenience anyone." To my mind, all the more evidence that something was not right here. I was sure Edith would have preferred a more dignified pa.s.sing.

Van approached Edith's body carefully, and spent a long minute staring down at her. I suspected it was more to honor the woman than to look for clues; I seemed to recall that Edith had been Van's fourth-grade teacher. I gave Van her moment of silence.

Finally she turned around to me. "I shouldn't be saying this, since I'm the professional here, but you knew Edith and you know this path. What do you think happened here? Did she get here on her own?"

I stamped again. My toes were definitely numb. "If you're asking for my opinion, I think it's highly unlikely that Edith would have walked all the way out here, or at least, not without a very good reason."

"Why not?" Van asked.

I would have ticked off my points on my fingers, but mittens made that kind of difficult. "One, that hip replacement she had not long ago. I wouldn't have said it to her face, but it was taking her a long time to recover from it. She walked into town only because her doctor told her to. Two, Edith had no interest in pretty scenery, so she wasn't looking for a view to admire. And there's not much else out here except a couple of houses-I can't tell you if she knew who lives in them. Three, I think you can rule out suicide. Apart from the hip replacement, Edith was in good health. At least, that's what she said, and I didn't see anything to suggest otherwise. Her mind was as good as ever. She hadn't withdrawn from any of her usual activities. Not that she would have necessarily told anyone if she had a real problem. She was private that way."

"Maybe she figured she'd go out while things were still good?" Van asked.

I shook my head. "You asked, so I'm telling you: Edith was not the type to commit suicide, any more than she was the type to take scenic hikes. And if she had planned to die, she would have done it in a more civilized way, not out here in the middle of nowhere, in a heap of snow."

Van stared at me. "So you're saying that someone else was involved in her death? Why here? Why drag her, dead or alive, halfway across town and then up a hill?"

"Oh, Van, I have no idea. I can't think of anyone in town who would do that. I never heard anyone say a bad word about her. In a purely physical sense, I suppose it wouldn't have been difficult to carry her, though. She couldn't weigh much over a hundred pounds, even in a coat and boots."

"You try carrying a hundred pounds half a mile up a hill," Van retorted. "Still, I guess that doesn't rule out a strong woman, not that I'd want to try it." She made a three hundred sixty degree sweep of the landscape, then pointed down the hill. "Only one house with a sight line. Wonder if they saw anything?" she said, mostly to herself.

I tried to wrap my head around the image of a woman throwing Edith over her shoulder and trudging up a hill, and failed. And wouldn't that have left some trace? "I haven't seen any activity at the house since I've been here, and now there's your car sitting on the road there "too" with the lights going-you'd think someone would have noticed that, if they were at home."

"Probably," she replied. "Well, I don't know that there's much we can do until the coroner's people show up. This has to fall under the heading of 'not readily explainable', unless I can convince them it's 'suspicious circ.u.mstances.'"

"You mean they have to do an autopsy?" When Van nodded I hurried to add, "There's one more reason why Edith wouldn't have wanted to die this way. She would have been horrified at the idea of some stranger poking around her insides. So undignified!" I could almost hear Edith's voice as I said it. "Hey, have you ever handled a murder?"

"No, actually-I looked up the regulations online before I made those calls, just to be sure," Van admitted. "You don't need to stay. I know where to find you. You didn't notice anything else, did you? On your way over, or once you got here?"

"Not that I can remember, but I'll let you know if I remember anything. I didn't see her until I got close to her, but I didn't notice anything particularly out of the ordinary along the way."

"Well, let me know if something else occurs to you, and try to keep this to yourself for now. I figure you'll tell Henry, but I know he can keep his mouth shut. Just don't pick up the phone and tell all your best friends, okay?"

"Like I'd ever do that. But you've got to figure the news will be out by tomorrow, even tonight, if the news stations get hold of this. By eleven, even."

"I suppose. Is it your day at the library tomorrow?"

"It is. You want me to keep my ears open?"

"Please. Now go on home and enjoy a nice warm dinner . . . and maybe a bath . . . and your husband. I'll take it from here." She got no argument from me. I headed homeward at a half-jog, looking forward to all of the above.

I huffed into my house, warmed by the exercise, and inhaled the good cooking smells. "Henry, I'm home!" I called out.

Henry, his rangy six-foot glory draped with a striped ap.r.o.n, emerged from the kitchen. "You look flushed. Did you hurry back just for me?"

"Maybe," I said. In response he wrapped me in his arms, and I welcomed the embrace, holding on longer than usual.

Which he noticed. "Hey, babe, what's wrong? What was going on out there that held you up?"

I figured it would be easiest if I just said it flat out, kind of like ripping a bandage off. "I found Edith Hathaway dead in the snow, on the hill behind the Johnsons' house."

His response was everything I could have hoped. "That nice old lady? That's awful. I mean, it must have been awful for you to find her. Not just awful for her. What happened? Do you need a gla.s.s of wine? Come into the kitchen and tell me all about it."

I shucked off my down jacket, pulled off my boots, and in stockinged feet I followed him into the bright and steamy kitchen. He was waiting for me with a gla.s.s of red wine.

"It's a nice little California s.h.i.+raz. That's what I used in the daube. So, sit down and tell me everything."

Despite his sympathetic expression, for some odd reason I felt reluctant to tell the story. Of course Henry had also known Edith-heck, everybody in town knew everybody else, and Edith had lived in Strathmere for half a century, at least. She had always spoken her mind, but she'd been fair and nonjudgmental, and usually right. How could she be dead? I fought back the p.r.i.c.k of tears.

"How well did you know Edith?" I asked, stalling.

"We were both part of the town Green s.p.a.ce committee for a while, remember? She had very decided opinions, but she was willing to listen to other views. She certainly made the meetings more interesting. You knew her through the library, right?"

"Yes, she was a regular there." I took a deep breath. "I was almost ready to turn around and head back when I came up the hill near the Johnsons' and found her lying in the snow. She looked so peaceful . . . but clearly she had been there for a while. She was kind of blue."

"Cyanosis? Due to hypothermia?" Henry asked, sounding a little ghoulish. But I was used to it: Henry is a research scientist, and he likes precise terms.

"Yes, dear, I guess so. Her lips were blue, anyway. I didn't take her gloves off to see if her fingers were too. Would that happen if . . . she died quickly?"

"I won't even guess-too many variables. No signs of violence?"

I sighed. "None that I could see. Not that I examined her. I knew better than to touch anything, since there was nothing I could do for her."

"So what did you do?" Henry asked.

I made a mental note to stop watching television procedural shows with Henry, because he seemed far too interested in the details-losing sight of the fact that this was not just a body, this was Edith, someone we had both known and respected. "I called Van, who called the necessary people. Once she showed up, she told me that I could go home. I a.s.sume I'll have to give an official statement in the morning." I took a hearty sip of my wine: rich, earthy, with a slightly rough edge to it. Nice. "You know, it seemed unreal. It took me a moment to realize I was looking at a body, and then another moment to recognize it was Edith. She was just so out of place up there. Like I told Van, I'd just seen her yesterday, when she returned a book." Which made me think of something. "Hold on a sec," I told Henry.

I retrieved my cell phone from my coat pocket and hit Van's cell phone number. "What?" she barked, when she answered.