Looking into people’s private lives made me feel uncomfortably like one of those sleuths who uncovered stories for the tabloids, but at least I wasn’t going to make anything I found out public-unless it had to do with Keith Ingram’s murder. I made a note to call Phil Logan as soon as I left the library. If anyone could find out the name of the novelist who had humiliated Tina Long, it was Phil.

There were no other familiar names in the Acknowledgments of books six, seven, and eight. So my next act was to see to whom Gray had dedicated these eight books. The first was to his mother, and the second “to the memory of my beloved mother.”

The next four books were dedicated to his agent, Alan Berger.

Book number seven broke Berger’s streak of dedications, although the agent was thanked warmly on the Acknowledgments page.

The dedication in the seventh Roger Wilde novel was: “To Frank R. Stockton, who understood both Ladies and Tigers.”

That one was easy to decode; it was a reference to the classic short story, written by Frank Stockton, called “The Lady, or the Tiger?” It was one of the most chilling tales I’d ever read. I taught it every year in my old high school English classes because the ending always provoked lively debate among the students. Their answers to my questions “What would you do if you were the hero?” and “What would you do if you were the princess?” revealed important clues about their personalities. From time to time what I learned from that exercise enabled me to motivate them to think about their own futures, and inspire them to get the most they could from their years in school. Sometimes; unfortunately, not often enough.

Enough of my memories; I needed to concentrate on my current challenge.

While I hadn’t learned the identity of the person to whom Roland had dedicated The Terror Master-“The one who got away”-what I did learn was that Roland met Eugene Long several years before the lethal cook-off. It was another piece of the puzzle, but whether it was material to the central picture or just a piece along the edge, I had yet to discover.

I decided I needed to see Eugene Long. Because I wasn’t an official part of the investigation into the murder of Ingram, I would have to come up with an innocent-seeming excuse in order to meet with him…

Then I realized that the road to Long was through his great big billion-dollar ego.

I closed the covers on Roland Gray’s novels, picked up the stack, and replaced them on the appropriate shelf in the library’s Fiction section.

As I was passing the checkout desk to leave, I saw a young woman, college age, beckoning to me. I didn’t know her name, but I recognized her face; she worked part-time at the library. She glanced around-furtively, it seemed-and gestured for me to come over to where she was organizing books into the cart she would push as she replaced them on their proper shelves.

I whispered, “Did you want me?”

She nodded. “I thought you should know that while you were reading, there was a man watching you. He’s gone now, but while he was here that’s all he was doing-just watching you.”

39

A man in the library had been watching me?

I felt a chill run through my body. “Do you know who it was?” I asked.

“No.”

She motioned for me to follow her over to an area in the corner of the library where we could speak privately, but she still kept her voice so low I had to lean close to hear her.

“It might even have been a woman,” she said. “The person was wearing a dark green hoodie sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants. I couldn’t see the face.”

I did a quick search of my memory to recall the people I’d noticed when I came into the library. I hadn’t been looking for anyone in particular, but being aware of my surroundings had become a habit ever since someone tried to kill me a few months ago.

“I didn’t see anyone in a hooded shirt,” I said.

“The person came in about a minute after you did. I noticed you because I recognized you from TV-I watch your show. Then when he-or she-came in after you they caught my attention because they did something peculiar.”

“What was that?”

“They took a magazine from the rack, but they didn’t actually touch the magazine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They picked it up using a tissue. I thought the person must be some kind of germophobe. It was strange, and we’re told to keep an eye out for anything unusual, so I kept glancing over that way. The person wasn’t reading. I could tell because he didn’t turn any pages. Instead, he was just pretending while he was watching you. I was positive about that because as soon as you closed the books you had on the table, they put the magazine down and hurried outside. I still couldn’t see the face because I was over on the side of the room, behind him-or her. I don’t think the person was a fan of yours because wouldn’t they have gone over to you and asked for an autograph?”

“Not necessarily.” My pulse rate had quickened, but I tried to seem casual about what she’d told me. “In the months I’ve been on the air,” I said, “only a couple of people have asked me to sign something. I think my dog, Tuffy, gets most of the fan mail.”

“Oh, don’t feel bad. I’m sure that’s just because you’re a cooking personality.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I smiled. “I never thought of it like that.”

She nodded. “We’re in Hollywood -not geographically, but pretty much mentally-so there are different categories of celebrity. Some get bothered; some don’t.”

I replied with an all-purpose “Ahhh,” letting my voice rise slightly at the end of that nonword to denote comprehension, but I needed to get the conversation back to the subject that was important to me. “About the person in the green hood,” I said. “I think you should tell the librarian about what you saw, so she can be alert in case that person comes in again.”

“You can be sure I will. Look, I hope I didn’t scare you.”

I faked a smile. “No, not at all. People just do odd things sometimes. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

That’s what I said, but I didn’t mean it. Four nights ago I’d been at the scene of a murder, and then two nights later I’d been present at an attempted murder. Hearing that someone who’d kept his or her face covered, and used tissues to handle a magazine, had been watching me was more than a little frightening.

“Thank you for your concern,” I said. “If you ever want to come out to the Better Living Channel to see the show live on a Thursday night, leave your name with the channel’s operator and I’ll have a seat in the audience saved for you.”

“That’d be great,” she said with enthusiasm. “My name is Elizabeth Taylor-honest, that’s my real name. My parents’ name is Taylor and my mother named me after her favorite actress.”

“Elizabeth Taylor. I’ll remember. And I’ll tell the operator at the channel to expect to hear from you.”

When Elizabeth returned to her work putting books back onto the proper shelves, I went to the restroom to wash my hands. While my fingers could use a soaping and a rinse after examining the old novels, I was stalling for a few minutes until the library was about to close.

At four o’clock, I left the building in a group with other library patrons. A quick scan of the area didn’t reveal anyone in a dark green hooded sweatshirt, but I was not about to linger. As soon as I got into my Jeep, I locked the doors.

Turning onto Montana Avenue, I headed west, but instead of going home to Ninth Street by the most direct route, I drove up Fifteenth Street for several blocks, turned around, came back down to Montana, and then went up Eleventh for a few more blocks. By the time I’d turned around and was headed back again toward Montana Avenue, it was clear I wasn’t being followed. When I reached Ninth Street, I made a right turn off Montana and went home.