liked realism,” she said.
“And you know that’s not my strong suit.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“That’s very kind, but it’s true. So I need all the help I can get.”
Ms. Arlene went silent again. CJ could see her searching for a way to help him.
“So I imagine you’ll be talking with Mr. Weidman, then?” she asked.
CJ nodded, committing the name to memory. “I’m meeting with him sometime next week.”
At that, Ms. Arlene smiled.
“Then you’ll get it from the horse’s mouth himself,” she said. A second later, though, her brow furrowed. “Wait a minute. Isn’t this all supposed to be some big secret?”
“For the average person, maybe. But Mr. Wallburn—”
“Weidman.”
“Yes, Weidman. He’s a patron of the arts and wants to make sure that my book does the topic justice, which is why he’s agreed to meet with me.”
“How nice of him. I know how busy he must be preparing to run the whole prison system.”
“I’m grateful for the time he’s giving me,” CJ said. “And for your help, Ms. Arlene.”
The librarian beamed, put a hand to her chest and said, “I don’t think I did much of anything.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You helped me see how important it is to keep my representation of Adelia accurate.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
If it was possible for an already maximized smile to grow even wider, Ms. Arlene succeeded. “I’m glad I could help, then,” she said, although it seemed she still might be doubting the importance of her role in CJ’s next literary endeavor. Even so, it was not enough to keep her from accepting his gratitude.
“I’d do anything to protect Adelia’s image,” she said.
CJ thanked Ms. Arlene again and began to extricate himself from the conversation, which took more effort than he would have liked now that the two of them shared the schemer’s understanding. Eventually, he won his freedom, again by using his fictional book as a lever.
It was as he was walking away, however, that one of the last things Ms. Arlene had said began to call for more of his attention. It wasn’t until he’d reached the library’s front door that he understood what was troubling him. Over the intervening decades between Eddie’s murder and CJ’s return to Adelia, he’d never doubted what had happened in the woods that fateful day. If witnessing the shot itself hadn’t given him that confidence, then Graham’s threatening visit to his room that evening had served the purpose.
And to his way of thinking, the fact that he was so sure about it, and yet had held the crime tight to his chest all these years, made him share some measure of guilt with Graham.
He spun around and found Ms. Arlene, barely moved from the place he’d left her. “Ms. Arlene, I’d like to view some microfiche.”
It perplexed him when this pronouncement made her laugh again.
“Oh, my dear boy,” she said after composing herself. “We haven’t had microfiche in a decade. It’s all computers now.”
“Of course it is,” CJ said.
In a few minutes, Ms. Arlene had CJ set up in front of a computer, where she walked him through the basics of navigating the system.
“I think I’ve got the hang of it,” he said. “Thanks, Ms. Arlene.”
She hovered at his side for a little longer as if unsure that he was the proper judge of his new skills. Finally, she took a step back, but instead of leaving she hovered just behind him, perhaps to satisfy her curiosity regarding the subject of his research.
As CJ was in no mood for company, and since he wasn’t much interested in sharing the subject matter of his research with her, he didn’t do a thing. He just sat in the chair, facing the computer, his hands on his lap as if in meditation, the blinking cursor on the screen his point of focus. He sat there for a full minute before he sensed the sound of shuffling behind him, the discomfort growing as it must have occurred to Ms. Arlene what he was doing. Still, it took another full minute before she left, and CJ suspected she’d taken her goodwill with her. Even though his patience with the woman was exhausted, he wondered if that had been a wise choice; who knew when he might need more information about a topic that had started out as a skeleton but was now growing flesh? What kept him from feeling too badly was that what he was researching had nothing to do with the prisons.
In truth, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for.