Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,61

Clay tried to do a snorty, jokey laugh. “And thanks for visiting. It’s been a real trip. I tell you, once I’m out of jail, I’m going to seriously consider leaving Moraine. I’m sick to death of all the talking behind everybody’s back. I should have known you’d turn everybody against me.”

“Me, turn everyone against you? Ha!” I said. “Maybe, if you didn’t give the people I’ve known my whole life so much to talk about, they would have accepted you.”

“Look who’s talking!” He should have shut up and left it right there, but Clay never did know when to quit. He continued. “You’re the one who made a mockery of our marriage. You’re the one who broke our sacred wedding vows by divorcing me.”

My turn. I really tried not to resort to name-calling. I really, really tried—for about ten seconds. It didn’t work.

Painful and unpleasant memories from our toxic marital past were coming back to me, fast and furious. As though we had any other kind. Like all the times we’d argued about other women and where he had been all night and how he’d refused to confess his indiscretions even when I had concrete, indisputable evidence against him. And how I’d become spitting mad and start calling him names. No one in the world, not even my mother, could make me so hopping angry and frustrated.

“You sleaze-bucket,” I said. “You #@!!%.”

“Oh, that’s really mature,” Clay said before raising his voice. “Guard! Guard!”

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep, calming breath and wishing for another of Grams’s magic pills. “I’m all right now. I didn’t mean to go off. It’s just that when I heard about you and Grace . . .”

“I hardly even know the woman. She came to my place one time. Just one time.”

Clay was a one-time type of guy. One time was all he really wanted. Pursue, conquer, move on to the next woman. Classic sex addiction. And I couldn’t help noticing he didn’t flat-out deny my accusation. The creep.

“I still can’t figure out why you would kill Faye,” I said. “You could have just dumped her like all the others. Wouldn’t that have been the easiest way to break up?”

“Exactly right,” Clay agreed. “If anyone’s an expert at break-ups, it’s me.” He grinned, that little-boy impishness I used to find so cute. “When I get out, I’d like to spend time with you again. You know.” He raked me with his eyes. I gagged.

I could barely sputter my outrage. “You have got to be kidding.”

Was there a way to get to Clay so I could strangle him? There wasn’t a door on my side or I might have tried.

“Patron privacy,” Emily said, shaking her head when I asked her about Stanley’s bee book checkout. “We can’t discuss our patrons or their individual selections.”

“Okay, then. Can you tell me when the book will be available for another patron to check out?”

All I wanted to know was when Stanley had checked out the book, either before or after Manny died and his bees had disappeared. How hard was that?

“You can use the computer over there to place a hold.” She pointed at a row of computers against the wall.

I refrained from rolling my eyeballs skyward, although the temptation was almost irresistible.

“Emily, you’re taking the privacy act way beyond its original intention. You know the computer program won’t tell me when I can expect to get the book because I already tried looking that information up. When will it be available? That’s all I want to know. If you can’t get it for me soon, I’ll have to try to get it from another library.”

I hoped the threat of visiting another library would change her mind. Emily hated when her patrons went astray.

“I can get another one for you,” she offered. “I can reserve one from a consortium library and have it sent over.”

Frustrated, I tried another tack. “I hear that my ex-husband was in here the night of the bluegrass jam.”

Emily brightened. Library events were her favorite topic. “I’m planning more like that. One every month, I’m thinking, to develop continuity and big audiences. Do you have any recommendations? Something you think will go over well?”

“I’ll think on it. But getting back to that particular occasion. Remember, that’s the day we found Faye Tilley in my kayak? What I want to know is, did Clay use one of your computers while he was here?”

“Again, patron privacy.”

Just then, Stanley Peck walked in the door, or rather rushed in,