A Book to Kill For Read online

  Chapter 3

  An unfamiliar face appeared in the viewing room behind Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Toonsley. The latter were the elite of Fair Haven, and although Maggie couldn’t recall the last time either one of them had come into the bookstore, she was not surprised they’d shown up. Anywhere they could be seen was the place they were going to be. Mrs. Toonsley wore an appropriate black dress that hugged her perfect figure, with gold fixtures dangling from each finger and wrist. Mr. Toonsley was in a similarly sharp black suit and tie. But the man behind them was a stranger. A very handsome stranger.

  Maggie tugged at the sleeves of her sweater and smoothed out her skirt as the young man approached. He had a clean-cut style about him and wore black pants and a gray sweater. His hair had gotten wet from the rain, and so had his cheeks. At least that was what Maggie thought until he came closer and she realized he was crying. He walked over to the casket and knelt on the kneeler. He was there for a while, and no one bothered him. Finally, after wiping his eyes and blinking back any more tears, he turned and walked over to Maggie.

  “Are you Margaret Bell?” he asked with a weak smile.

  “I am,” Maggie replied, her face twisting like it usually did. Why would a handsome guy like this be coming up to her? He must want something.

  “I’m Joshua Whitfield. Alexander was my dad. He told me all about you.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, he barely mentioned you to me,” Maggie blurted. “I mean, I’m sorry for your loss. He was a wonderful man.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. It’s nice that he was so well tended to,” Joshua said as he looked over Maggie’s face.

  She swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say, but nothing coherent or even halfway logical was forming in her head. Mr. Whitfield had never mentioned how handsome his son was. Truthfully, he’d only mentioned his son once or twice, and that had been to complain about Joshua’s choice of wife. Maggie decided not to ask about it.

  “I’m sorry. There are a few people I need to talk to. Do you know where the funeral director is? I’ve got to square away the bill and a few other things,” Joshua said.

  “Uhm, he should be in his office.” Maggie pointed to the hallway toward the kitchen. There was an office back there, too.

  “Thanks, Margaret. I’d really like to chat with you again when all this is finished,” he said as he took her hand in his to shake.

  “Really?” Maggie asked before pushing up her glasses with her other hand.

  “Yeah. Since I’ll be renovating the bookstore, I’ll need to know what can go,” he said with a sad smile.

  “Renovating the bookstore? What for?” Maggie came to life as if she’d received an electric shock.

  “I know my father. He’d been using his pension to pay for the place. It wasn’t making any money,” Joshua replied. “I’ve got to do something with it.”

  “Well, your father loved that bookstore exactly the way it is. It was more than just about making money. There are beautiful books there. Books you can’t find anywhere else. The kind of books people don’t even write anymore,” Maggie huffed. “And you want to come and change it all? You want to know what can go? Well, none of it. That’s what can go.”

  Joshua looked at Maggie. For a moment, she got caught up in his eyes, which were the same strange hazel color as his father’s. But they twinkled as if he had a secret. Then a smile crept across his lips, making him even more handsome. Maggie didn’t like it one bit.

  “My dad told me you’d react this way. Look, now isn’t the time to talk. But I look forward to working with you,” Joshua replied before turning and walking toward the funeral director’s office.

  “Working with me?” she muttered. She looked down at Mr. Whitfield, who she could have sworn was smirking at her. “Alexander Whitfield, what have you done?”

  Joshua Whitfield stood at the funeral director’s door, waiting for him to get off the phone. The man wore an elegant pinstriped suit and pinky ring and spoke calmly and quietly to whoever was on the other end of the line. Religious pictures and prayers hung on the walls. The neatly organized desk, a hulking oak monstrosity with intricate carvings around the top and the base, took up almost the entire room. There were a coffee pot and a tray of bread and cheese especially for him in the corner. He put one finger up the second he saw Joshua, who nodded in response.

  Joshua didn’t mind a few seconds of not speaking to anyone. He looked toward the room that held his father and watched Margaret Bell. Alexander had spoken about her dozens of times, but never had he mentioned how pretty she was. Not like that Samantha what’s-her-name who had walked into the funeral home at the same time Joshua had. She was sexy and knew it, and Joshua was pretty sure that most of this quaint little town did too. But Margaret was different. Of course, according to his dad, Margaret was really smart, had a dry sense of humor, and was painfully shy. That Joshua could see as she stood close by his dad’s casket the way a small child might cling to her mother’s leg.

  But there was something more than cute about her. It was probably very inappropriate to think about such things at his dad’s wake. But Joshua thought his dad had kept her looks a secret from him just so he could look down from heaven at this exact moment and laugh.

  “Mr. Whitfield.” The funeral director snapped him out of his thoughts.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Joshua gave Maggie one last look before focusing on the task at hand.

  “My name is Dennis Lorenz. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The funeral director stood from his desk and barely reached a height of five-six. Funny, Joshua thought he had looked a lot more imposing while he was sitting.

  “Thank you,” Joshua said. “I just got into town and wanted to know what expenses needed to be wrapped up.”

  “No expenses. Your father had everything paid for beforehand,” Dennis replied.

  “What? How could that be? He didn’t have any money,” Joshua said.

  “He made all the arrangements more than two years ago. I handled all of the details personally. He didn’t want a big fuss. Mostly, he just wanted to have a quiet affair. Frankly, from the way he talked, I’m pleasantly surprised at the outpouring of sympathy from our little town.” Dennis smiled. He was handsome, even if he was short, and looked like a character out of a movie from the forties.

  “I just don’t get this. I know my dad’s pension was almost completely gone. The bookstore didn’t make any money. Where did he get the funds for this?”

  Joshua was frustrated. He knew he shouldn’t be and should just be thankful, but he wasn’t. He’d been gone for several years, trying to make his marriage work. When that had failed, he had been embarrassed to face his dad. Not that Alexander had ever given him a reason to feel that way. But like so many kids, it didn’t matter how old he got; he wanted his dad to be proud of him. And how could Joshua make his father proud when he couldn’t make himself proud?

  “Obviously, this is making you upset. I’d promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Dennis said and walked over to a bookcase that was loaded with important-looking books. He pulled down an especially old copy of a book titled Smoke from the Altar by Louis L’Amour.

  “What is this?” Joshua asked.

  “Your father’s payment. I love western novels. This book is a first edition, and we sort of made a trade. I know it isn’t what you expected, but your father was not what most people expected. He was the last of the great thinkers, a real gentleman,” Dennis said.

  “He paid you with a book?” Joshua smirked.

  “He did indeed. And I assure you that everything he requested has been carried out to perfection. Tammy’s Bakery provided the food in the kitchen. The casket was lined with powder-blue satin. Of course, he has an American flag for his time in Korea,” Dennis assured Joshua.

  “It certainly sounds like he handled everything.”

  “You can be sure of that. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.” Dennis shook Joshua’s hand again.

  When Joshua ste
pped out of the office, he didn’t know what to think about what his dad had done. He couldn’t be mad at him. His dad had paid for what he wanted in his own way. The man would never take a handout, so he gave away what he had.

  When Joshua looked toward the viewing room, he saw his father’s pretty assistant again. He wanted to go talk to her a little more, but she was obviously well known in town. She probably had a boyfriend or maybe two.

  Maggie’s thoughts were all jumbled as she worried about her job. She hated Joshua Whitfield for it. And she couldn’t help but think that he was absolutely dreamy, and she’d decided she hated him for that too. As she watched him walk toward the funeral director’s office, her face contorted as if she’d smelled something bad.

  Mr. Whitfield had paid for his funeral with a first edition of one of his books. Maggie was convinced that Mr. Lorenz had skimped on what her previous boss had wanted. He had prayer cards of St. Anthony and donations to the library in lieu of flowers. But Maggie had not been told where his ashes were supposed to go. She expected them to stay in the bookstore. But since she wasn’t family, even though everyone in town knew she’d worked at the bookstore for six years, she had no say in anything. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Maggie found herself walking back and forth just a few steps and looking at Mr. Whitfield, the nicest man she’d ever known, and hoping that maybe he wasn’t really dead. Maybe he’d wink at her and confess that he was playing some grand game on the whole town. But of course, he wasn’t. Instead, he was playing a cruel game on her by not mentioning how handsome his son was and then having him just show up out of the blue. Joshua Whitfield, who was going to talk to her about her job and tell her what they were going to do differently, even though Maggie had been handling all the gory details for years. She knew where every book was, how much each cost, and how much certain books were worth and had read almost half the inventory. She felt a certain stake in the company even if she wasn’t a blood relative. It made her purse her lips and twist them to the side.

  “I know that feeling,” Calvin Toonsley chuckled as he snuck up on Maggie.

  “What? Oh. Sorry, Mr. Toonsley. Thank you for coming,” Maggie said as she adjusted her glasses again. She’d only spoken to Mr. Toonsley on a couple of occasions, but the man was hard to forget. He mentioned his profession a dozen times per sentence and would often check his genuine Rolex just as many times in front of whoever he was talking to.

  “It’s a shame the old man had to go. But I guess we’ll all have to go sometime, right, Maggie? That was a nice little shop he had. Although I’ve never been much of a reader, except for the stock market, right?” He grinned.

  Maggie forced an awkward smile. “Well, Mr. Whitfield enjoyed any visitors who came to the store. He wasn’t worried about whether anyone bought anything.”

  “That’s probably why he was barely staying afloat.” Calvin Toonsley cleared his throat. “I tried to tell him to invest. You know, the stock market is my business.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Maggie replied.

  Mrs. Samantha Toonsley was on the other side of the room, chatting with some of the women from town. She gabbed with a smile on her face as if she was at some kind of charity event, trying to raise money.

  “I understand collecting, but I’d rather collect on my investments than on some old books. Know what I mean?” Calvin asked with a wink. “If you have a couple thousand dollars, Maggie, I’d be happy to help you make a couple of strategic investments. That is what I do, after all. I can’t guarantee you’ll end up as comfortable as Mrs. Toonsley and me, but you might have a couple extra dollars in the bank. After you sell the bookstore, just come and see me, and we’ll talk.”

  “Who told you I was selling the bookstore?” Maggie snapped.

  “No one. I just assumed,” Calvin replied with a shrug.

  “Yeah, well, no one is selling anything. I don’t have a couple thousand dollars, Calvin,” Maggie snapped and handed him back his card.

  “You sound like my son, Heath. Home from college for a couple weeks and thinks the world owes him a living,” Calvin huffed. “He’s been this way every time he comes home, whether it was boarding school or now Harvard. I don’t know what it is with you young people and always doing everything the hard way.”

  “I graduated college over a decade ago, Calvin,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, uh, I thought you were younger than…well, I see. So…you probably should call me sometime, to talk about your financial future. Even if you don’t sell the bookstore,” Calvin stuttered.

  When he didn’t get a response from Maggie, who stared at him with wide, dry brown eyes as if he was slowly turning colors, Calvin cleared his throat, tapped on the edge of Mr. Whitfield’s coffin, and walked toward the kitchen.

  Maggie took a deep breath, but before she could even exhale, Mrs. Toonsley was at her side. The smile she’d been showcasing to the others had been replaced by a droopy, overly sympathetic expression.

  “You poor dear,” she said and pulled Maggie in for a tight embrace. The smell of her perfume stung Maggie’s eyes and made her blink. It was like a heavy quilt that had marinated in dry cinnamon for a couple years.

  “Thanks, Samantha,” Maggie grunted as the air was squeezed out of her.

  “Walter was such a wonderful man,” Samantha said as she pulled back and touched the edge of the coffin.

  “Who?” Maggie huffed.

  “Walter.” Samantha looked at Maggie and then the coffin and back at Maggie again.

  “His name is Alexander.”

  Maggie squinted and wrinkled her nose. There were still several hours of this wake to go, and she was exhausted. If only she could have traded places with Mr. Whitfield, at least until everyone left.

  “Of course it is. Of course it is. I knew that. I even bought a couple of books from him.” Samantha was an expert at recovering from an awkward situation.

  “I remember. You bought a fourth edition of Lancaster Boots and a regular copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. How did you like the books?” Maggie replied with a slight smile.

  “I didn’t read them. Lancaster Boots was an investment. I saw that was going for over a thousand dollars on eBay. Calvin isn’t the only one who knows what things are worth. And my son needed To Kill a Mockingbird for school. Did you hear what I just said? My son needed to kill a mockingbird for school. What kind of school is that?” She chortled at her own joke.

  Maggie smiled politely and nodded before wrinkling her nose with annoyance. “I read that when I was in eighth grade,” Maggie replied.

  “Yes, well, you’re bookish like that. My son, he’s…more outgoing, you know. He’s very popular at Harvard. He belongs to Phi Beta Kappa, same as his father,” Samantha replied proudly. “He’s in town for a visit. Now, if I could just get him married off. Are you seeing anyone?” She chortled.

  “Not at the moment.” Maggie shook her head.

  “Oh, honey, I was only joking. You aren’t Heath’s type. He goes for the more outgoing kind of girls. You’re just a little too…uh…er…”

  “Bookish?” Maggie tugged at her sleeves again.

  Samantha cleared her throat and once again tilted her head to the right and frowned in annoyance rather than out of real sympathy.

  “I had spoken to Walt…Alexander about purchasing another book. Sierra Madre Heights? I believe he said he had a first edition. Do you know anything about that? If it would still be possible for me to purchase it?” She eyeballed Maggie as if looking for a chink in her armor.

  “I can’t say anything about that. It doesn’t belong to me. It all belongs to his son now. Heaven only knows what he plans to do,” Maggie mumbled.

  “Is he getting rid of the older books in the bookstore? Are you selling them too?” Samantha asked, her eyes narrowing as she watched Maggie. “I mean, they are just old books collecting dust. If no one has bought them by now, I doubt anyone will.”

  “I’m meeting with his
son to discuss my job. I’m sure he’ll say what he’s doing with the inventory,” Maggie replied. “He came in with you and your husband. I thought you were talking to him.”

  “Oh, is that that handsome young man who came in before us? My goodness.” Samantha flipped her blond hair over her shoulder and looked around for Joshua.

  Maggie rolled her eyes again then looked at Alexander and wondered why he hadn’t talked to her about this day. They had both known it was coming. But why hadn’t he prepared her? Why hadn’t he suggested a book to help her cope or given her some kind of sage advice like he was always doing and she was always ignoring? Why hadn’t he reminded her that he was old and not going to be around forever?

  “Oh, I think the mayor just walked in. If you’ll excuse me,” Samantha said. She barely finished the sentence before walking away to slip her manicured fingernails through the mayor’s arm and hold on tight. Sadly, the mayor looked all too happy to see her.

  Maggie looked around at all the people. She liked the book ladies who often visited and bought some of the secondhand titles Mr. Whitfield carried. There were a couple of boys from the high school who had regularly come in to trade their old copies of the Dune Chronicles for a couple dollars or to swap out for some old pulp sci-fi.

  But other than that, she wasn’t sure what all these people were doing here. They never came into the store, let alone bought anything. All Maggie could think was that they were bored and had nothing else to do.

  It had started to rain on the day Mr. Whitfield had died and had continued on and off until today.

  “I heard the forecast say it’s supposed to continue raining for the next week,” one of the mourners said in passing, giving Maggie a sad grin as she slowly glided along. “You can bet the bridges will be closed.”