“I told you not to say that,” Joe whispered to him.
Tibbs raised his hands up and backed away. “Forgive my language,” he said to Marybeth.
“Please clear the center of the room,” she said. “We’ve got to get set up and I don’t want either of you two in the shot.”
Joe happily moved to a corner. Tibbs slinked to another, and Griffith joined the tech behind the camera to get out of the way.
* * *
—
Like the sheriff, Joe listened to the outside mutual aid law enforcement radio channel through an earbud while Marybeth silently read over her presentation at the table. He noted that she’d attached sticky notes to particular pages of photos within the album that she planned to display to the cameras. There was a second stationary camera on a tripod over her shoulder to focus in on the particular images when she opened it.
Over the radio, the deputies and town uniforms identified themselves and their locations to each other on their handhelds. Three local police officers were seated in individual cruisers on the streets outside the library. Another uniform and Chief Williamson were in the MRAP behind the bank. Tibbs spoke to all of them in a low tone.
“Look, fellas, we don’t know what exactly to expect, but be on the lookout for the two suspects in the green SUV that we’ve been searching for all night. Colorado plates. If you see something, report it immediately. They might arrive in another vehicle, so be alert. Also keep an eye out for anyone on foot.
“No one is to enter the library. If someone tries, detain them for questioning. And remember, our suspects are armed and dangerous. We want to take them without any drama and we don’t want anybody hurt.”
The officers all mumbled their assent to the sheriff. Joe gave him a thumbs-up.
* * *
—
A few minutes later, Deputy Bass broke in.
“Hey, Sheriff, I’ve got a sheriff’s deputy from the next county here. He wants to talk to you.”
Tibbs and Joe exchanged a confused look, and Tibbs said into the radio, “Who is he and what does he want?”
Bass: “He says his name is Deputy Tucker Schuster, Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. He says he had a run-in with those suspects you mentioned earlier today and he has some information about them.”
“What information?”
“He says he needs to talk to you.”
Tibbs lowered his radio and searched the ceiling tiles as if looking for an answer.
Joe checked his watch again and signaled fifteen minutes before airtime by opening and closing the fingers on his free hand three times.
“Send him in through the back, but tell him to hurry,” Tibbs said.
Marybeth looked up at the sheriff. She was annoyed by the distraction.
“I’ll talk to him outside,” Tibbs said to her. He left the room.
“That man,” Marybeth said to Joe. “As if this wasn’t stressful enough.”
“You’ll do great,” Joe said.
She met his eyes. “Joe, no offense, but I think I’ll be more nervous if I know you’re standing there watching me.”
“Say no more,” he said, following Tibbs out of the conference room into the circulation room. Then: “Knock ’em dead, kiddo.”
“AnnaBelle, feel free to stay,” Marybeth said to the prosecutor.
“Thank you, I will.”
“Fourteen minutes,” the library tech announced.
* * *
—
Joe hovered outside the plate-glass window of the conference room while Tibbs went off to talk to the deputy from Gillette. The interior of the original Carnegie library had been refurbished several times, but the bones were still there. It was dark with high ceilings, and the shelves were high and packed closely together.
He could hear the sheriff’s boot steps recede on the stone floor toward the back door. Then a clunk as Tibbs pushed on the bar on the metal door to open it.
Joe was curious to find out what the deputy had to say, so he moved into the nearest aisle. He was in the fiction section, L through O. Through the gaps on top of the collection of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, he could periodically see the form of the sheriff four shelves away. Then the appearance of a man who flashed by the openings to approach Tibbs. The sheriff stood with his back to the last bookshelf and to Joe’s position.
He got a brief glimpse of the deputy as the man moved through a narrow opening, and his appearance struck Joe as off. The deputy was older than most deputies, likely late thirties, and he had dark hair and black plastic glasses. No mustache or facial hair. Something about him seemed foreign, Joe thought. Something about the way he carried himself.