“Oh, I missed the note,” he said.
Of course he had. She referred to it as his “man-scan,” the glance that often missed obvious things right in front of him. Two nights before, he’d searched the house for twenty minutes for the reading glasses that dangled from the front of his shirt. Earlier that week, he’d remarked on how he liked the “new” lamp in their living room that she’d placed there four months before.
It was especially irksome because she knew that when he was out in the field investigating a crime, he could see everything quite clearly.
* * *
—
It was on the cusp of Thanksgiving break and their three daughters were coming home for the holiday. The youngest, Lucy, was a sophomore at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. She was bringing with her an international student from Hong Kong whom she’d befriended. When Lucy had learned her friend had nowhere to go over the break, she’d invited her along. That was Lucy.
Twenty-two-year-old April had graduated from Northwest Community College in Powell with a law enforcement degree and was working for a Western-wear store. Their oldest daughter, Sheridan, was twenty-four and local, so she wouldn’t be sleeping at the house with them for the holiday. Sheridan worked for their friends Nate and Liv Romanowski, owners of Yarak, Inc., a bird abatement company. Like Nate, Sheridan was a falconer. She’d been in the middle of the trouble in the mountains with Joe and Nate, and Marybeth had still not come to grips with what could have happened to all of them.
Marybeth heard Joe shut the door of his pickup and start the motor.
“Really, you don’t have to come into town,” she said.
“I’m on my way.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, “I’ll get out and make my way to the front door and stay on the line with you. If I see anything strange, I’ll report it and you’ll hear it as it happens.”
“That’s crazy,” Joe said. “Just sit tight.”
She ignored him, got out, hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and walked toward the library with the phone in one hand and the pepper spray in the other.
There was no movement from the corner of the building or the spindly bushes.
“I’m nearly there,” she said.
“Turn around and go back to your car and lock your doors.”
“I’m twenty feet from the door.”
“Do you have your weapon available?” Joe asked.
“It’s at home in the cupboard, as usual.”
Joe groaned. “This is why I bought it for you.”
“I know. I have pepper spray.” Then: “Ten feet.”
She saw the package on the step near the base of the door. It was about a foot by a foot and a half in size and probably four inches thick, messily wrapped in brown paper with the edges taped down.
Written on it in quivering black marker was: For the 12 Sleep County Library Collection.
Marybeth sighed audibly as the tension melted out of her. She quickly dismissed her ludicrous worst-case scenario—that it was a bomb.
“It’s okay,” she told Joe. “Somebody dropped off a package at the front door, is all. It happens all the time. Turn around and go get some breakfast.”
He paused for a few seconds. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Get inside and lock the door. Then I’ll turn around.”
“Okay.”
She swiped her keycard in the lock, opened the door, and pushed the package into the vestibule with her foot. It was surprisingly heavy, but she could tell by experience that it was a large thick book of some kind. That it had even occurred to her that the package might be a bomb was unnerving to her. It was a glimpse into how fragile and conspiratorial her mental state still was.
“I’m in,” she said to Joe as she turned and locked the door behind her.
“What’s in the package?”
“I’ll let you know later,” she said. “I’m not worried about it. People clean out their houses and they don’t know what to do with their books, so they ‘donate’ them to the library. Occasionally, there’s even something of value, but most of the used books get pulped or put into our book sale.”
“They do this anonymously?”
“Sometimes.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little embarrassed, is all. I’m glad I didn’t call the sheriff. Go home now.”
He said he would.