"MARRIED?” I STARED at her. Was she serious? I examined her serene face. Yes, she was serious. “Uh, did he tell you that?”

“No, of course not. He didn’t know it,” she said, her head tilted to one side, her huge gray eyes dreamy. “But it would have happened. I was the only one he told things to, you know? He talked to me.”

“It sounds like you were friends,” I said carefully.

“We were. Good friends. And he loved me.” Her eyes flooded, and one big drop fell on her hands, which were folded in her lap. “Eventually he’d have seen that no one would have . . . no one . . .” She sniffed and shook her head, looking down at her hands, struggling with her emotion.

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” I said, gentling my tone. “He was lucky to have someone in his life who loved him so much.” It seemed an impossible match to me, this little, bookish miss and the hulking, angry Tom, but perhaps she would have been the making of him. That she loved him so fiercely changed how I saw him and strengthened my sorrow at his death.

She told me good things about Tom Turner, that he was the one who had built the wheelchair ramp for her and all the shelves for the books, many of which were from her own collection. The library truly was hers, supported in part by the Brotherhood of the Falcon that Binny made such sport of, and with other grants that she zealously pursued. She was quite accomplished, I gathered, at writing grant proposals. As Hannah spoke, I thought about how a person could be so many things at once, good and bad and sometimes ugly. I recalled what Gordy and Zeke had said, about Tom and Junior Bradley fighting over some bar dancer named Emerald. Which Tom was the real deal, the one who hung out in bars looking for a fight, or the one who built shelves and a ramp for a sweet-faced librarian? I guess he was both.

“I want to know who did this,” Hannah finally said.

“Me, too.”

“Then let’s figure it out.”

I gaped at her. “Let’s . . . you mean you and I?”

“Why not? We’re both smart women, right?” Hannah smiled even as tears welled in her eyes. She sobered, and said, “I won’t rest until I know who killed him. He didn’t deserve it.”

I stared at her for a moment, then said, “You know, some are probably going to think I killed him. In fact, I know they do.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Then let’s get started figuring this out.”

But how to do that? Maybe if I got to know Tom posthumously, it would help. “What was he like? From your viewpoint?”

“Rough around the edges,” she said, staring off into the distance. “I’ve known him a long time. Mrs. Turner used to babysit me before she left town.”

“Mrs. Turner?”

“Binny’s mother.”

“She left town? When? Why?”

“She took Binny and left . . . oh, let’s see . . . Binny was about ten, I was fifteen, so I guess about fifteen years ago or so? No one knows why.”

“Hmm. Odd that she took just her daughter and left town.” It seemed to me in a small town, someone should know why, unless it was something so breathtakingly horrible that no one wanted to be the first to say it.

Her eyes flashed, and she fastened them on me. They glittered strangely in the shadowy dimness. “And don’t you go thinking anything nasty. It wasn’t anything like that.”

My eyebrows climbed. She was not quite so sheltered as I had thought, if she had picked up on the direction of my wandering musings. But then, a voracious reader does learn much of the world, if only through books. “I’ll take your word for it.” I hadn’t truly thought the woman had taken Binny away to avoid some kind of abuse by father or son anyway; it had been a possibility, though not high on the list. There were dozens of other explanations, most of which didn’t involve anything sinister at all. “How did father and son get along after Tom’s mom left?”

“She actually wasn’t Tom’s mother . . . Rusty’s wife, I mean, which I guess was why she didn’t take Tom with her when she left; plus he was, like, nineteen or so. Tom was from Rusty Turner’s first marriage. His mom died soon after having Tom.”

“You do know a lot about folks, don’t you? What do you know about my uncle Melvyn?”

She waved one delicate hand airily. “Tom’s murder first. Focus, Merry.”

What would have been annoying from anyone else, was charming coming from her, and she knew it. I had to smile. “What was Tom looking for on my property? Do you know?”

“He said he was looking for his father’s body—and that’s what he told Binny—but that wasn’t true.” She hesitated.

“And . . . ?”

She shrugged, and engaged the joystick of her wheelchair, whirling around and wheeling to one of the bookshelves. I followed. Her mood had changed abruptly. She looked at the spines of the books at her eye level, pulled one out, and handed it to me. “This will tell you more about Autumn Vale and your ancestors. The town is called Autumn Vale because of them, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking down at the plain, hardbound book.

“The town was supposed to be called Wynterville, but one of the earliest settlers was dead-set against it. Said the Wynters were already too powerful. He got folks on his side, and the town was named Autumn Vale, it is said, so it would never be Wynter.”

“Wow.” It sounded like the kind of story that gets started when a town mythologizes its past, but it could be true. I paused for just a second, but then charged ahead. “Hannah, do you know what Tom was digging on my property for?” It had not escaped my notice that she had avoided the question neatly.

She pressed the joystick and returned to her librarian desk. “I don’t know, exactly, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t really believe that Rusty’s body was buried there. He had Binny convinced, though, at least for a while.”

“So what was he looking for?” I insisted. “Come on, Hannah, if you have any idea, please tell me!”

She sighed. “I don’t. Truly, Merry, I would tell you if I could.” Her shadowed face was marked by an expression of indecision.

“Okay. Who disliked him enough to kill him?”

Hannah grimaced. “Poor Tom. He was good at making people dislike him. I don’t know why.”

“Then where should I start?”

“Well, two places. I heard he had a fistfight with Junior Bradley, the zoning commissioner. They were childhood friends. Tom wouldn’t tell me why they fought.”

I’ll bet he wouldn’t tell her why. The girl adored him, and he would have shattered her view of him if he told her that he and his friend had come to blows over a stripper. I’d definitely have to check out that dancer and Junior Bradley. “And who else?”

“Well, you should probably consider Dinah Hooper.”

The name sounded familiar, but with all the locals I had been meeting, I was momentarily stumped. “Who is she?”

“She is . . . was . . . Rusty’s girlfriend. She works at Turner Construction. Her son, Dinty, worked there, too, but he left town some time back.”

“How is Dinah dealing with Rusty’s disappearance?”

Hannah looked pensive. She angled her face upward, and a ray of light shone in one of the few high windows in the dim library, catching her eyes, beaming brightly in the luminous gray depths. She was like a faery, sometimes fey, sometimes grave, looking like a child but speaking like a woman. I’ll admit, among the many characters of Autumn Vale, she fascinated me most.