new rows of books, another wing set aside for children, with chairs and couches punctuating the décor. They’d obviously gotten a grant of some kind and had made good use of it.
CJ wasn’t sure why he was here, except that it was to do some research on the county prison system. This morning at Maggie’s had convinced him that he was more likely to find something useful here with all of the archived newspapers and microfiche. He could probably use the Internet to look up most of what he needed, of course, but libraries did something to him; they stoked his creativity.
He quickly found a table and set to work, locating a thick book about New York prisons, as well as an Adelia Herald from 1998 that talked about the first prison built and the hiring blitz that had filled more than a hundred positions.
He had spent maybe an hour researching when a voice that was etched in his memory pulled him away from the book he was reading.
“Charles Jefferson Baxter, what on earth are you doing here?”
The small jump he did in his seat was purely a reflex, and he belatedly hoped she wouldn’t take offense to it, but it was definitely warranted. Ms. Arlene had always had a gnomelike appearance, but after the passage of so many years she looked like one of those garden gnomes that had suffered under the elements for a very long time. In all other respects save one, though, she looked exactly the same, which gave CJ the impression that he was a boy again, lighting up in the library bathroom. The difference today, however, was that she was smiling, and that was such an odd image it made him wonder if he’d ever seen her smile before.
“Hello, Ms. Arlene,” he said, trying to keep astonishment regarding her continued existence to himself.
“My goodness,” she said. “A famous writer, right here in my library.”
“If you remember,” CJ said, immediately realizing that her decades-long prohibition was no longer in effect, “you kicked me out of here when I was in high school and told me never to come back.”
Ms. Arlene touched her hand to her chest and tsked.
“I did, didn’t I?” She giggled, and the sound was much too similar to a schoolgirl’s for CJ’s liking. “Smoking, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She laughed again, and her eyes took on a conspiratorial twinkle. “I was a two-pack-a-day smoker myself back then,” she confided. “Virginia Slims.”
CJ laughed, then offered a tidbit of his own. “You know, that was the first cigarette I ever had. When you caught me, it turned me off of smoking for years.”
“Then I performed a public service,” she said.
When she finally left his table, after proudly directing him to the local author section, which was comprised solely of his books, he dove back into his research, focusing primarily on the Adelia Herald. It was little more than a small-town rag, but it had an authority lent by the number of years it had been in circulation. With its first edition published in 1834, it held the distinction of being one of the oldest dailies in the Northeast. But that did nothing to make up for the fact that most of the news was pure provincial stuff. The initial article on the prisons was pretty good, though, and CJ was able to glean a fair amount of information about the social and political climate that had paved the way for their coming.
If he’d heard correctly, Richard worked as a prison guard—a career choice that suited him. He’d hate to be a prisoner on his cellblock. He wondered if the injuries Dennis had inflicted on him were of the visible variety and what, if anything, the prisoners would say when they saw them.
He decided not to travel too far down that path. Richard was a man deserving of everything that was bad in this world, and sooner or later people ended up getting what they deserved.
He worked for another hour before returning the book and the newspaper to their places, stopping by the desk to say goodbye to Ms. Arlene, and then heading off to meet Dennis at the house.
Dennis wasn’t around when CJ arrived, so he started where they’d left off the night before, which involved more electrical work. When his cell phone rang he was more than ready for a break, even if it meant listening to Janet berate him some more, and since she hadn’t resumed calling him, she probably had more than her