Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(74)

“No one is to enter the library. If someone tries, detain them for questioning. And remember, our suspects are armed and dangerous. We want to take them without any drama and we don’t want anybody hurt.”

The officers all mumbled their assent to the sheriff. Joe gave him a thumbs-up.



* * *



—

    A few minutes later, Deputy Bass broke in.

“Hey, Sheriff, I’ve got a sheriff’s deputy from the next county here. He wants to talk to you.”

Tibbs and Joe exchanged a confused look, and Tibbs said into the radio, “Who is he and what does he want?”

Bass: “He says his name is Deputy Tucker Schuster, Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. He says he had a run-in with those suspects you mentioned earlier today and he has some information about them.”

“What information?”

“He says he needs to talk to you.”

Tibbs lowered his radio and searched the ceiling tiles as if looking for an answer.

Joe checked his watch again and signaled fifteen minutes before airtime by opening and closing the fingers on his free hand three times.

“Send him in through the back, but tell him to hurry,” Tibbs said.

Marybeth looked up at the sheriff. She was annoyed by the distraction.

“I’ll talk to him outside,” Tibbs said to her. He left the room.

“That man,” Marybeth said to Joe. “As if this wasn’t stressful enough.”

“You’ll do great,” Joe said.

She met his eyes. “Joe, no offense, but I think I’ll be more nervous if I know you’re standing there watching me.”

“Say no more,” he said, following Tibbs out of the conference room into the circulation room. Then: “Knock ’em dead, kiddo.”

“AnnaBelle, feel free to stay,” Marybeth said to the prosecutor.

“Thank you, I will.”

“Fourteen minutes,” the library tech announced.



* * *



—

Joe hovered outside the plate-glass window of the conference room while Tibbs went off to talk to the deputy from Gillette. The interior of the original Carnegie library had been refurbished several times, but the bones were still there. It was dark with high ceilings, and the shelves were high and packed closely together.

He could hear the sheriff’s boot steps recede on the stone floor toward the back door. Then a clunk as Tibbs pushed on the bar on the metal door to open it.

Joe was curious to find out what the deputy had to say, so he moved into the nearest aisle. He was in the fiction section, L through O. Through the gaps on top of the collection of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, he could periodically see the form of the sheriff four shelves away. Then the appearance of a man who flashed by the openings to approach Tibbs. The sheriff stood with his back to the last bookshelf and to Joe’s position.

He got a brief glimpse of the deputy as the man moved through a narrow opening, and his appearance struck Joe as off. The deputy was older than most deputies, likely late thirties, and he had dark hair and black plastic glasses. No mustache or facial hair. Something about him seemed foreign, Joe thought. Something about the way he carried himself.

“I’m Sheriff Scott Tibbs. What’s so urgent?”

“I’m sorry to bother you. Is this the place where the photo album is located?”

Joe caught the hint of an Eastern European accent.

“I thought this was about our suspects?” Tibbs said.

Joe could hear them clearly through gaps in the bookshelves. He hoped their voices wouldn’t carry into the conference room and be picked up by the microphones.

Then there was a flurry of motion in front of the sheriff and a breathy “Oooof” as Schuster violently shoved Tibbs into the stack of books behind him. Joe caught a glimpse of the sheriff’s flailing arms.

Tibbs fell back heavily enough into the bookshelf that it rocked back. Books on the other side crashed to the floor. The unbalanced shelf tipped and started a chain reaction as it fell into the next shelf, causing it to tip over as well.

Joe could see what was coming, but he couldn’t prevent it or get out of the way in time. The second shelf crashed into the third and the third into the fourth and suddenly Joe was buried under the deadweight of hundreds of pounds of hardcover books and the shelves themselves. He went down to his knees as the books piled up on top of him and he knew what it must be like to be caught in an avalanche.

“Marybeth, look out!” he yelled.

He didn’t know if his voice carried from the mountain of books he was trapped under and he couldn’t see anything for a moment. The distinctive smell of musty pages filled his nose and throat.

Joe found himself thrashing, not sure which end was up. He could hear yelling, then a scream. Then Marybeth cursing, which was unusual in itself.

He made himself stop moving for a few seconds so he could get his bearings. He realized that his knees were solid on the floor, so at least he knew which direction up was.

Then he started swimming, in effect. He worked his arms free and windmilled his hands, using the mass of the books themselves for purchase. A few seconds later, he pushed his head free and gasped for air. He could feel the hot burn from a dozen abrasions all over his body, but he didn’t think he had broken bones or other serious injuries.