She walked over to a portable CD player on the edge of her small stage and pushed a button. A Bee Gees tune that had probably been popular around the time she was born blared out at top volume. I covered my ears and yelled, “No music. Turn it off, please.”

Lillie White looked surprised, but cut off the music. Before I had quite realized what she was doing, she untied her robe and let it drop to the floor. She stood before me wearing nothing but a G-string and pasties, and began to gyrate to an unheard beat.

“Please,” I said with averted eyes. “Put your robe back on. I only want to talk.”

“Whatever.” She picked up the robe and put it on.

“Sit down, please.” I pointed to an empty chair at my table.

“You only got twelve minutes left,” she announced.

“Then I'll talk fast. You are Lillie White, aren't you?”

She nodded.

“I want to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Mr. Macmillan.”

“You a cop?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“No. Just a concerned citizen.”

She giggled. “Never heard that one before.”

“I've been asked by the college to make some inquiries about his death.” I didn't think it necessary to mention that last night President Godlove had called and told me to stop my investigation since he was satisfied that Woody was to blame. I wasn't about to stop, because in my mind and in my heart I was sure Woody was not involved.

“You sure talk fancy, sort of like a teacher I had once. She wasn't from around here.”

I sighed. This was getting me nowhere. I decided to be blunt. “Lillie, did you have an affair with Mack Macmillan? Answer yes or no.”

“Sorta.”

“What does sorta mean?”

“I mean we went out for a while, and he sorta fell in love with me. It don't count as an affair if you're going to get married, does it?”

“The man was already married, Lillie.”

“Yeah, but he was going to divorce her.”

It occurred to me that if Lillie truly believed that, she was even dumber than she looked. “How did you meet him?”

Her eyes opened wide as if she thought I was dumber than I looked. “Here, of course.”

“You mean Mack Macmillan was a customer of…” I struggled for a descriptive word and came up with “this establishment?”

“Not a customer, silly. He owns it.” Tears began to streak her pancake makeup. “I mean, he done owned it.” She covered her face with her hands, and I noticed her nails were bitten to the quick. “Nobody was supposed to know, but I guess it don't make no difference now.”

While I waited for her sobs to stop, I thought about Mack Macmillan. He was hardly the kind of person he'd appeared to be. Not exactly “a man like you,” as his political campaign ads proclaimed, unless you happened to own a porno shop and cheat on your wife with a stripper.

I felt really sorry for her. Only about twenty years old, stripping in the seediest place this side of Atlantic City, and deluded by an older, wealthy man into thinking he was going to marry her.

“Lillie, you seem like a nice girl. Why are you working in a place like this?”

“The only other choice is fast food. I got a four-year-old daughter to support.”

“You don't look old enough to have a four-year-old.” Now I really felt sorry for her.

“Got pregnant in high school. My first time.” She shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“What is she going to think of you when she gets older?”

Lillie unsuccessfully tried to toss her stiff blond hair. Under the makeup, she was actually pretty. “Kayla ain't gonna know. I'll quit when she starts school. I'm working on my general equivalency diploma so's I can get a good job.”

“Does her father help support her?”

“Said she ain't his kid.”

“There's DNA testing, you know.”

“Can't test a guy's DNA when you don't even know where he is.” Lillie crossed her arms over her chest. “Time's up,” she announced.

CHAPTER 13

I ARRIVED AT THE OFFICE SHORTLY AFTER NINE. TO get there that early was a triumph, since I'd spent most of the previous night awake, missing Garnet and feeling sorry for myself. Only when the sky began to lighten had I fallen asleep.

“You look awful,” Cassie said.

“You're not exactly brightening my day with remarks like that.”

“Sorry, Tori, but your eyes are puffy, your cheeks are pillow-grooved, and your hair is standing straight up in back. Why don't you go home and go back to sleep. I can handle everything that's scheduled for today.”

“I'm fine.” I smoothed my hair down as best I could, knowing it would snap back as soon as I removed my hand, and took a look at the calendar lying open on my desk. “What's this, Cassie?” I asked. “There's something down for six-thirty tonight, and all it says is Foster's Elevator.”

“I told you about that. It's the shower for Janet Mar-golies's new baby.”

“It's being held in an elevator? Small, select group, I guess.”

Cassie laughed. “Don't be silly, Tori. Foster's Elevator is a grain elevator and feed store in Mountain View. Everybody knows that.”

“Even though I've had plenty of opportunities to discover that Lickin Creek is very different from Manhattan, I think holding a baby shower in a feed store is just a little peculiar. Don't you?”

She shook her head. “Not if the feed store happens to be owned by your father, and it's got a large meeting room upstairs.”

“I give up.” I picked up a story sent in by one of our freelancers and pretended to read it, but I was seriously thinking about going home for a nap.

Cassie answered the phone a couple of times and handled whatever crises loomed on the horizon. The fourth time, though, she covered the receiver and spoke to me. “I think you ought to take this one, Tori. It's Maggie at the library, and she sounds awfully upset.”

“Maggie, what's the matter?” I asked. She was crying so hard I couldn't understand what she was trying to say. “Has something happened to Bill?”

“No,” she wailed. “It's the”-sob… sniffle… sob-“the gutta-percha. It's gone. Stolen.”

Cassie, still listening on her extension, looked at me quizzically. “Gutted perch?” she mouthed.

“Tell you later. No, not you, Maggie. I was talking to Cassie. Do you want me to come over?”

“Please.” Sniff… sob… sniff.

As I hunted for the camera and some film, Cassie said, “Sounded like she was talking about a fish. What's the big deal about a gutted perch?”

“Gutta-percha, Cassie. It's a rubberlike material. Maggie has a display at the library of objects made of it. I think it was on loan from the town historian.”

“And it was stolen? Poor Maggie! I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of Gerald Manley's temper.”

“Ah, here it is.” The camera was on top of the file cabinet behind a potted snake plant, the only plant that hadn't died since I'd taken over the office.

I ran down Main Street toward the library. From a block away, I could see the Lickin Creek police cruiser parked in the tow-away zone out front.

Maggie fell into my arms the instant I entered the building. She was sobbing harder than before. “What am I going to do?” she moaned.

“Tell me what happened?”

She pointed at the empty display case. Shattered glass lay on the floor and on the table where the neat display of Civil War books still stood.

“Hi, Tori,” Luscious said, coming to stand beside me. I smelled brandy, not necessarily on his breath, but surrounding him as if it were oozing through his pores. Evidently, last night, while I'd cried myself to sleep in bed, Luscious had quieted his loneliness in a different way.

The door burst open and Gerald Manley rushed in. His silver hair looked worse than mine, and he obviously had pajamas on under his coat. “You'd better have a good explanation for this, young lady,” he barked at Maggie.