A Cloud of Suspicion

Great. I’ve got overdue fines to pay.

He snapped the book shut and returned it to the top of the stack.

Someone, most likely the attorney, had gathered together a pile of mail and left it on the seat of the chair. Picking it up, Patrick sat and began to sort through it. Most of it was junk mail and old newspapers, but he did find a few bills he would have to take care of.

When he came across a late notice from the library, he read the note with special interest. It was signed by Shelby Mason.

Shelby, with the gorgeous red hair and roses in her cheeks. So she had moved from working at the college library to working at the city library. Why hadn’t she left this miserable town behind?

She’d been a sweet kid. He had wanted to ask her about her life this morning at the café, but he had left instead when he saw the number of cold stares leveled in his direction.

He’d cut short the conversation as much for her sake as for his. The gossip machine in Loomis could grind her up and spit her out in no time just for passing the time of day with him.

He tossed the letter aside with a weary shake of his head. It seemed he still had a need to protect the underdog.

What made him think Shelby Mason needed protection? In Loomis, he was the underdog. A cur no one would speak up for.

He rose and wandered through the kitchen and down the hall that led to the back of the house. His old bedroom was the first door on the right.

Stepping inside, he wasn’t surprised to find it stripped bare. His football trophies, his track ribbons, his posters of Easy Rider, Santana and Jennifer Lopez were all gone. His stepfather had gotten rid of every trace of him. Only the blue drapes remained to remind Patrick of the way the room once looked. He pulled the door shut.

The next room down the hall was his father’s bedroom. Easing the door open, Patrick looked in. The bed was neatly made. There were a few clothes scattered around, but nothing of his mother’s.

He frowned when he saw the empty bookcases lining two walls. Had his father gotten rid of his mother’s books?

Diana Rivers had been an English teacher with a true love of literature and history and a passion for collecting old books. Some of Patrick’s fondest memories were of the two of them traveling to estate sales, rummage sales, even auctions looking for unusual books on the state’s history or first editions of her favorite authors.

Once, at a garage sale in Covington she paid a dollar for a first edition of a Mark Twain novel and had spoken of it gleefully for months afterwards.

A lumber mill worker like his father and his grandfather before him, Ben Rivers had put up with his wife’s odd obsession, but he never understood why words were so important to her.

Patrick closed the bedroom door and turned to the last small room at the end of the hall. It had been his mother’s sewing room. When he pushed open the door, he found himself confronted with a room stacked full of packing boxes.

Lifting the lid off the nearest one, he found it contained some of his mother’s clothes. A second box held more of the same, but he relaxed when he opened the third box. In it were dozens of his mother’s books.

Sinking onto the dusty floor, Patrick drew out a novel bound with thick red leather and embossed with gold lettering. He breathed in the scent of the old paper and truly smiled for the first time since he had crossed the Louisiana state line.

Shelby’s day passed in a busy blur at the city library. After the weekend there were always plenty of books in the drive-up return book bin to be checked in, reshelved or mended. A rush of customers in the early afternoon kept her busy and left her little time to think about the type of memorial program she could develop for Mrs. Renault.

As busy as she was, she still found herself thinking about Patrick Rivers and the odd way he had smiled at her.

She’d had such a crush on him in college. Of course, he had barely noticed her.

As the captain of a winning football team he’d had his pick of girls, but he’d been more than a jock. He’d spent plenty of late nights studying at the campus library. Sometimes, when he stayed until she had to lock up, he would walk her to her dorm. It made her feel so special.

Looking back, her infatuation seemed silly now. Her dorm had been on the way to his place. He hadn’t really been walking her home. He’d just been walking in the same direction and being kind. It had been his kindness that made the accusations about him so hard to believe.

Shelby recalled the night vividly. Patrick had just led their team to a regional championship. Most of the campus had turned out to celebrate the big win with a bonfire in a secluded part of the bayou.

Shelby had watched the merrymakers with a touch of envy. It wasn’t that she wanted to drink or party, she just wanted Patrick to notice her.

He didn’t, of course, because she stayed in the background, a shy mouse of a girl that no one noticed. Not like Coral Travis. Everyone noticed her.

Standing by herself in the shadows that night, Shelby overheard a disturbing conversation. She recognized Coral’s voice telling someone that she was going home with Patrick, whether he knew it or not. He was her ticket out of Loomis.

Before Shelby could retreat, Coral had come out of a stand of small trees and spied her.

Shelby could still hear the mocking tone of Coral’s voice. “What are you doing here? Hoping some guy will get drunk enough to ask you out?”

From some unknown source of strength, Shelby managed to reply, “Patrick deserves better than you.”

Coral only laughed and said, “Get out of the sandbox, chubby, this is where the big kids play.”

Mortified, Shelby watched as Coral sauntered off and insinuated herself next to Patrick. The two of them left together less than half an hour later. Shelby took her bruised ego and wounded heart home where she indulged in a good cry.

The next day the news of Patrick’s arrest for rape spread across the campus like wildfire. Nearly everyone believed it was true.

Would it have made a difference if I’d spoken up and told the police what Coral said? But what reason would Coral have had to lie about such a serious charge?

The same questions had haunted Shelby for weeks afterward. When Patrick left town, she thought the answers didn’t matter anymore. Until now.

A patron approached Shelby for help finding a book. Pulling her mind out of the past, she dismissed Patrick Rivers from her thoughts and got back to work.

When five o’clock rolled around, Shelby and Wendy closed up and walked to their cars in the parking lot behind the building. The lot, shared with the town hall, the library and several other businesses, was quickly emptying as people headed home.

Shelby caught sight of Chuck Peters standing at the street corner checking a pay phone for loose coins. She knew a moment of guilt. She hadn’t found time to call Reverend Harmon.

Chuck glanced in her direction. He spun around and hurried away, casting frightened glances over his shoulder.

“Shelby, look,” Wendy said, drawing her attention away from the odd behavior of the little man.

Following Wendy’s gaze, Shelby saw Coral Travis talking to Wendell beside her car. An angry expression hardened Coral’s sharp features. It was plain the two were arguing.

Wendy’s eyes grew round as she relished more gossip. “I wonder what Wendell Bixby thinks about Patrick’s return? A city councilman running for mayor can’t be thrilled to have his fiancée’s unhappy past raked up again.”

Knowing the town as well as she did, Shelby knew that was exactly what would happen. Wendy wasn’t the only one who liked to gossip.

As Shelby stopped at her own car, she noticed a white slip of paper waving from beneath the driver’s side wiper blade. Expecting it to be simply another Mother’s Day Festival flyer, she unfolded it and stared at the message in astonishment.

The block-printed note said,

Keep your fat mouth shut about that night or you’ll regret it.

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