Page 17 of By the Book

With a frown, Indira said, “How did someone get into the billiard room?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The doors were locked, and Mrs. Shufflebottom has my key. Wait, whereisMrs. Shufflebottom?”

The consensus seemed to be: no one knew. She was gone.

“I can’t believe no one SAW anything!” Millie exclaimed.

I tried to replay the sequence of events leading up to the discovery that the book was missing, and something swam up from my memory. “I smelled something.”

Fox started to giggle. And then, because he was a teenage boy, so did Keme.

“For real?” I said. “Grow up. I mean I smelled perfume when someone shoved me. I think it was the mayor’s. And a woman was saying, ‘Excuse me,’ like she was trying to get someone’s attention, and now that I think about it, it could have been the mayor.”

“You think Mayor Berner shoved you and stole a valuable book?” Bobby asked.

“I don’t know.” But I was trying to be better about standing my ground. I was trying to be braver. I was trying to trust my gut. I was also trying not to eat desserteverynight—listen, anything is possible. “I mean, yeah, actually. I know I smelled something… If you two don’t knock it off!”

Fox and Keme were laughing so hard they looked like they were going to fall over.

“Why would the mayor steal that book?” Millie asked. And then in a burst of excitement: “IS IT BECAUSE SHE’S SECRETLY NATHANIEL BLACKWOOD?”

“No, dear,” Indira said. “But she did seem quite angry with Agatha. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clearly an argument of some kind, and Teri obviously didn’t get whatever she wanted.”

“That’s because she wants to close the library,” Fox said, still sounding a little breathless from having the sense of humor (and emotional maturity) of a middle-schooler. “She definitely didn’t know about the fundraiser until tonight, and she came to try to stop it. Although I don’t know how she thought she’d get Agatha to change her mind.”

“Maybe she threatened her,” Keme said.

“We’re talking about the mayor,” Bobby said. “I know she’s not anybody’s favorite person, but do we honestly believe she’d do all this?”

The silence was deep enough—unfortunately—that I could hear my mom still giving Salk instructions. He’d somehow managed to bar her from going into the billiard room itself, so she leaned through the doorway as she called out directions: “Very good, Joseph. Now what do you think about that window? No, no, no! Take a picture!”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “She’s calling him Joseph.”

And from the other side of the house, my dad: “Deputy Winegar can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.”

I groaned.

Bobby squeezed my hand.

“I don’t know,” Indira said thoughtfully. “Teri Berner is a determined woman. She almost always gets what she wants.”

“And there’s a lot of money at stake,” Fox said.

“Wait, you think she’d sell the book herself?” I asked. “Why? And wouldn’t that be hard, considering it’s stolen?”

“Not as hard as you might think. A surprising number of people in the antiquarian business are willing to deal in items of, uh, uncertain provenance. Of course, that means they also deal with a fair number of shady customers, which brings its own trouble.” Fox put up a hand before I could ask another question. “What I meant, though, was this business of closing the library. It’s on a prime piece of real estate. If the library does close, that land will be worth a fortune. And I imagine that one way or another, our dear mayor is going to get a piece of the pie.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Bobby said—although to judge by his tone, it was clearly a struggle. “But it seems so out of character. Let’s take a step back. Is there anybody else here who might have wanted that book?”

“Stewart,” I said. The name popped out of my mouth before I’d even really thought about it. “I got the vibe he’s a local history buff—”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Fox muttered.

“—and he seemed peeved that he hadn’t been allowed to look at the diary. He kept trying to get me alone to talk to me, but I thought maybe that was just—”

“Your raw animal magnetism?”

Keme made a throwing-up noise.

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