Chapter 12

  Lucy had things well in hand. I checked in with her after the hike and the subsequent writing sprints.

  “Laura, I unloaded every box of books we had in the back and gave Lis and Zoe every broken down box we had plus our packing tape gun and sent them to Zoe’s to pack as many books into boxes as possible. I thought it would save time tomorrow, if we had as many prepacked as we had cartons for. Plus Zoe said she had some cartons, not many but some anyway. I should have thought of it last night then we’d already have a jump on it.”

  “No Lucy, that is great thinking to unpack all of those new books in the back, I didn’t think of that. But what I really want to know is, how many books total?”

  “Eleven thousand two hundred and twelve.”

  “Alright so we owe Zoe, Eleven hundred and twenty one dollars. Did Zoe agree with that count?”

  “Yeah, I think she was surprised that she had so many books. Do you think they’ll sell, Laura?”

  “Sure, it might take a while, but it’ll give Phoebe a job and she can stay with the guy she’s missed for fifty plus years. So if it makes enough to pay for gas money and a little salary for Phoebe, I’ll be happy with that, I really am not looking for a profit. If it exceeds expectations and starts making money, I’ll suggest to Willow that we hire another employee but perhaps Willow needs the cash, she doesn’t get a pension like I do. So it’s a fine line to walk, maybe I can ask her to take all the profits for the first three years, Trump will be out of office and I can rejoin the economy, I mean the next president's policies can’t be anywhere near as bad as Trump's. I wanted Phoebe to come up here and teach a class in calligraphy, I thought then we’d be like real medieval monks when we do our marginalia. I was thinking it might help inspire others to up their marginalia game. Maybe we can get her to come to the next writers workshop for a cut of the pie as they say.”

  “What about Urge?”

  “What do you mean, Lucy?”

  “You are paying for all of the books for around eleven hundred dollars, but look when you check the online price for a year two thousand and one bus the price is nine to eighteen thousand dollars. So if you make ten thousand profit for the first two years, you can say that you are even as Willow brought eighteen thousand into the business while you only started with an eleven hundred dollar investment. As of tomorrow your traveling bookstore books included will be worth around twenty grand. So Willow is putting a lot more into this than you are, so just tell Willow that all of the profits are hers until she hits twenty thousand in profit. Once that happens then instead of just taking your profit invest it back into the business, build book storage facilities in Woodstock and here. For instance here you could add onto either the stockroom or the boathouse. You want to refresh the boathouse so the collective can use it year round for workshops so it might make more sense to just add an addition while you are at it. Then you can use it as a business expense. We have positive proof that holding workshops on the store’s property increases book sales by a large amount. So you can prove to the IRS that an investment in the Workshops helps our bottom line so you can use our profits to fix up and enlarge the boathouse. Also if we do wind up storing books in the boathouse before it can be upgraded, we can buy a dehumidifier to protect the books.”

  “See that right there is why you are the manager, what if Urge takes off and we start making a lot of money. Well a lot of money for a used bookstore anyway, any ideas? How to burn through that money?”

  “Sure, just add a second bus and employees, lets say you make a twenty thousand dollar a year profit, just buy another bus and all the books you’ll need to fill it. It’s unlikely you’ll get another ten cent a book deal, so your second bus and books might put you twenty five grand in the hole. Plus I think you have five years of depreciation on a vehicle. So every year Urge loses around four thousand dollars in value, that is subtracted from your profits.”

  “How did you learn all this stuff?”

  “Business class in school.”

  “In high school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow, they didn’t have that when I went to high school. So you like the business end of the business, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Well go online and see if North Country Community College is teaching any business course this summer. If they are, I’ll pay for you to take the course or if not now, any evening classes in the fall. That way when you start school you’ll already have some credits, and you’ll know more about the school then any of the other freshmen. Try and find out how we can be successful without making a profit, legally. If a corporation is taking advantage of a tax loop, I want exactly the same treatment. I would be very happy to not pay federal taxes ever again. Make it happen, Lucy.”

  “I’ll do my best, Laura.”

  “I know, Lucy, you always do. Now let me show you how to write a business check to Zoe, from our store account. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, with Willow visiting and loading Urge with books but on Tuesday as soon as you teach Zoe how to make a sale in store and also over the video then I’ll take you down to the bank and have you added to the store's checking account. They’ll need you to sign some stuff so they have your signature on file. It’s too bad Phoebe hasn’t taught us any calligraphy yet, then you could sign the checks with a real dramatic flair.”

  “The bank probably wants my regular signature, Laura.”

  “Yeah banks want a lot of things, you could always say that is my regular signature, I’m very dramatic. That would make Floyd the bank manager pause. He thought he was going to be a big Hollywood star. He used to say that he was going to be the next David Janssen.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Exactly. Alright I have to go into town before I go back to the workshop, I think they are doing sprints most of the day, so I’ll be around, unless I think of something I need to write.”

  ***

  When I exited the bookstore, Audrey was standing there waiting for me.

  “Hi Audrey, were you waiting for me?”

  “Yes, Laura I was just wondering if your offer for me to stay until Tuesday was still something you’d consider?”

  “First off, you should have just come into the store, or called me I would have come right out. I’m sorry I kept you standing around.”

  “No, don't apologize, I need to move more. My doctors tell me the more I sit, the worse I am making things for myself. I bought myself a standing desk. Someday if I’m smart, I’ll add one of those treadmill pads so I can walk and write at the same time.”

  “That’s great for divergent thinking, walking I mean. So it’ll power up your brainstorming sessions. As well as being good for your health. We would love to have you stay. Now we have bedrooms on the third floor, here in the main house and second floor in our other house.”

  “To be honest, I just want to stay in my motel, I have a ground floor room and a very very nice spa bathroom. I did something uncharacteristic in the heat of the moment that I deeply regret and I have to consider what I am going to do to make it right. So that I can live with myself.”

  “The unexamined life is not worth living. I know the sentiment. If there is anything I can do to help let me know. Will you come to the Mystery Book Club tomorrow night? If you are planning on it I’ll call all the members. As I said before, you have some big fans that would be thrilled to meet you.”

  “Yes, that would be very nice, Laura. Thanks, I can sign books too, so tell the club to bring any of my books if they would like them signed.”

  “Great, thanks Audrey. I’ll go in and call them right now.”

  So I went back in and got on the phone to Claire Becker.

  “Claire, it’s Laura. I have news. Audrey Williams is going to be at the bookclub tomorrow night. She said that she would sign any books that you bring. So I thought you might want to alert the other club members so they can bring their books as well. I have a fair amount of her books in stock but I’ll try to get some shipped overnight. It might be tough on a Sunday, though. But I’ll do the best I can. I have to read at least one of her books before tomorrow night where should I start.”

  “Laura, start with her debut, it’s definitely not a cozy. It’s a real thriller and kind of heartbreaking, but also shows the strength of the human spirit. I think you might love it. It’s called “Too Trusting”.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “Thanks, Claire. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Now get calling, I promised Audrey she had lots of fans here, so they better all show up with books in hand or I won’t try to get any more authors to talk to you guys.”

  "Don't worry Laura, everyone in the club is a huge fan, I guarantee it. Just wait till you see it.”

  If Lucy needs more proof for the IRS that these Workshops are good for business, this can be another example. Maybe the best thing about these book Workshops is the networking, the new ideas, and I just had one, I’ll need to talk to Bianca about it later. See that walk really did boost my divergent thinking. Before I went into town, I went into the mystery section and grabbed “Too Trusting”. I wasn't going to do writing sprints this afternoon. Nope, I was going to do something I haven’t done in a while, sit in the reading nook and read and best of all I can claim it’s for work. I need to read at least one of the book club author’s books before they come to speak.

  ***

  Then I walked into town. I wanted to see the broken glass in the daylight and I hope that I can come to the bank and retrieve the bullet, tomorrow when they open. If it is a bullet and not a rock lying there somewhere on the floor. But when I got to the bank and looked into the window, I couldn’t see much of anything. The bright sunlight of the sidewalk didn't illuminate the dim interior. I couldn’t see a stone on the marble floor. So, peer as I might, I couldn’t find any evidence of a bullet. But as long as I was here, I thought another examination of the parking lot wouldn’t hurt anything.

  As I entered the parking lot from the same direction as I had the night prior, I saw a public trash can. After I looked around again for bullet shells, I’d take a look in the trash. Maybe I’d find something out of place, in the trash. If I hadn't been in such a rush to get to the Brew House and assure Amy I hadn’t been murdered I might have noticed the trash can last night.

  Well nothing can be done about it now. I looked all over the lot for a spent shell casing and found nothing. The tripod marks had been trampled over and only the outline of one barely remained. When I was satisfied that I hadn’t missed anything important, I picked up a stick and went over to poke around in the trash.

  Now I was that weird hippie lady who pokes around in the trash. I can see the little kid exclaim to his mother in my head. But I looked around on the street before said poking had begun. I was about to quit stirring the trash when I saw the white handle of a toy gun. Except it wasn’t a toy gun, it was one of those ghost guns. So now I had to decide what to do. Stick the gun in a bag and bring it to August, or call and make a big scene here in the parking lot. Last I had seen Sven he was in the tent back by the bookstore. But it was almost lunch. So I made an executive decision and slipped the gun into a chain coffee shop bag, also from the trash.

  Then I carried the gun to the police station. When I was in August’s office and had placed the gun on his desk.

  “You know Laura, it was a lot quieter around here last weekend when you were in Woodstock. Is there any chance that you might think about relocating there?”

  “No, wiseass there is not. You are going to want to put on gloves. I think there is ketchup on the gun, at least I hope it’s ketchup.”

  “Laura how did you come to be poking around in the trash in the main street lot? Am I even going to want to know the answer to that question?”

  “Last night all the writers took a walk to the Brew House. While we were on the way, I heard a boom and a breaking of glass. I thought a gun had been fired from the parking lot in Sven’s general direction. But no one else even noticed, the people who had heard the boom said it sounded like an M80 or possibly a car backfire. I searched the parking lot in the dark, but didn’t find anything. So I just went back to see if I could find a shell casing. But after a thorough search of the lot, I couldn’t find anything. Then I saw the trash can at the opposite end of the lot and I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to have a look. I saw what I at first thought was a toy gun. If I hadn’t seen those pictures on that laptop, I might have just left it in the trash assuming it was a broken toy. But I did see those pictures so I brought it to you, what would you have had me do?”

  “I would have had you follow the procedure. Call us and let us secure the evidence ourselves.”

  “So your advice is to ignore what the assistant district attorney told me to do? Why haven’t you arrested Sven, by the way? Why is that Nazi still sitting on my lawn?”

  “Because Laura, it takes time to build a case, to do it properly.”

  “In the meantime, me and the writers, it’s okay if we are collateral damage if his skinhead friends come back with more accurate weapons. You did see the photos, did you not?”

  “You know that I can’t comment on an active investigation.”

  “Right, always the same excuses. Just like the dog ate my homework. You used that one all through high school. You geniuses do realize, it is Sunday, the writers are leaving in a few hours, while you build your precious cases the bird is going to fly the coop. Or do you expect the writers and I to make a citizen arrest on his way out.”

  I watched him visibly grit his teeth, he was getting pissed. He hated that I knew he had used the most cliche excuse for not having done his homework. That his teacher had called him out for it.

  “Laura, contrary to your opinion, we know what we are doing and will make an arrest when we deem it to be appropriate. Now is there anything else that you needed? I have a lot of paperwork to finish.”

  “No August, you work on your paperwork, I’ll go home and keep an eye on the nazi for you. But if anything happens to someone I care about because the police have sat on their hands for the past twenty four hours, you’ll really have wished that I mailed my essays to the gazette weeks ago.”

  “Patience, Laura. I know you don’t have any but try and practice, sometimes just sometimes we may know more about solving crimes then you do.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we didn’t even have a dog. Your mother was allergic, why didn’t you at least say the cat pied on it and I didn’t think you’d want it. Instead of making up that dog story.”

  “Because I was not well versed in lying to people. Now please go.”

  So I did, I had a book to read anyway. I was sick of doing the police’s job in this town. I had blamed all the policing woes on Detective Jones. He was awful but maybe he is just the tip of the iceberg and all the citizens in Lake Placid are just passengers on the Titanic. The police aren't lifeboats. They are the band that continues to play as we slowly sink.

  I flounced out of the office. I can do a really good flounce when the situation demands it and I deemed it did demand it. So I flounced out and marched home. I stopped flouncing after I exited the station, no one could see me so it just didn’t make any sense to flounce any longer. Besides, I might hurt my hip and then I wouldn’t be able to walk for days.

  ***

  When I got back home, I looked in the tent to see what the writers were up to. They were all hunched over their laptops doing what writers do best. So I went into the store, made sure that Lucy was alright and then went to the reading nook to read. I’m not a thriller fan in general, they are page turning books to be sure, but as I read in bed and couldn’t put a book down at a decent hour even the non-thriller variety. So I usually read something more sedate. I love a funny or cozy mystery. Fantasy epics can be awesome, a great science fiction book or an enemy to lovers romantic comedy is always welcome.

  Before I cracked open the spine on “Too Trusting”, I realized another benefit of selling used books. I could read any book in the store now and resell it, I wouldn’t quite make back what I paid for the new book when I sold it as used. But that didn’t matter much. I was focused on not making a profit and also focused on reading. This was going to work out nicely.

  I liked the main character right away. Vicky was a hard working medical school student. Her friends made fun of her for working so hard and never going out with them. But Vicky had a dream, she wanted to be a surgeon. A heart surgeon in particular. She was doing this for her dad, he had died young of a massive heart attack, brought on by a heart defect, Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. No one had seen it coming and he just dropped. Better then dying slowly eaten away by cancer, I thought.

  But as Audrey made clear through Vicky the inability to say goodbye, had altered the course of her life. When her father was still alive, Vicky did well in school but wasn’t obsessed with studying like she was now. If she was obsessed with anything it was writing and spending time with her friends. Her plan was to go to a liberal arts college, get her English degree and become America’s next great novelist. When her father died, the fun loving girl died as well. Replaced by the uber focused student, she would become a heart surgeon so some other girl didn’t have to live through the nightmare of a parent dying too young.

  But she knew the material that she had been going over backwards and forwards. She was tired of being teased by her roommate, Sheila and her friends. So she closed her books, they’d be here tomorrow morning and blowing off a little steam might be good for her. She changed out of her sweats into a cute skirt and blouse and headed to the roadhouse where Sheila and the entourage had gone.

  Everything might have been alright if Sheila‘s ex wasn’t at the same roadhouse. As it was her roommate had only stayed at that bar for twenty minutes before opting to go somewhere free of the cheating ex, who had another new girl on his arm. So when Vicky arrived she quickly got a beer from the bar and started looking around for Sheila. When she found that Sheila was nowhere to be found, she decided to finish her beer and go home and start studying again.

  But as luck would have it, a cute boy appeared next to her at the bar. He asked to buy her a beer. She had only drunk about half of the eight ounce glass of beer that she already had. She told him sorry, but she was going home to study. But he pleaded just one more little beer, it’d relax her brain, she’d study longer and harder than she ever could with that extra beer.

  He was funny and charming and eight more ounces of beer would be fine. It was the worst decision she’d ever made in her life. The next thing that she knew, she was in the backseat of a dark car and the cute boy had transformed into a monster. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, the last thing that she knew she was standing in the bar. The monster was trying to get her blouse off, she started saying no, no, NOOO. she pushed at him, then suddenly he was gone. Thank god, she didn’t know why he’d stopped but thank god that he had. She got one button on her blouse and she only had one shoe. But she fled the parking lot.

  She should have gone back into the bar and called the police. But when you have been drugged and you aren’t even used to drinking, your decision making powers are gone, instead of going into the bar, she’d run for the road, she wanted to get back to campus, to her room. She wanted a shower, she wanted safety. I almost got raped. That’s when she got hit by the pickup truck full of frat boys.

  ***

  Holy crap, this is exactly why I don’t read stories like this. My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty. Horror, thrillers, why do people love to be scared. Isn’t life frightening enough? At this very second, something on this planet wants to kill you, a bengal tiger, a virus, a serial killer, worst of all cancer. This book is almost as terrifying as the bible. She couldn’t have died, I thought. It’s first person point of view, she’s the narrator and she couldn’t have died. I felt a little better.

  Just as my heart began to slow a little, I thought, I’ll go chat with Lucy. That will calm me down.

  Three huge black SUVs screeched to a halt in my driveway. Army men poured from the vehicles, black m16s pointed at the tent. They advanced into the tent and out of my view.

  Lucy was yelling for me, “Laura, Laura, LAURA.”