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pulled the plastic aside. Since the library was locked at night, the door wasn’t even closed.
    We both saw the splotches at the same time, dark blotches on the brown paper protecting the tile floor.
    My mouth went dry. “Is that dried blood?” I said, taking a step forward.
    The detective’s arm shot out, stopping me from going any farther into the room. “Wait outside please, Ms. Paulson,” he said, pulling another pair of disposable gloves from his pocket.
    I moved back to the edge of the plastic. “Is that blood?” I asked again.
    “Outside, Ms. Paulson,” he snapped, pulling on a glove. “Please wait outside the building.”
    The detective bent forward and picked something up as I stepped back and let the plastic drop. That was blood on the floor. What was it doing in my library?

4
    Repulse Monkey
    B lood in the library and Gregor Easton’s body at the Stratton. It wasn’t a coincidence. I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t.
    I could see Detective Gordon’s blurry shape moving on the other side of the heavy plastic. Any minute now he was going to come out and tell me again that I had to leave the building. I hurried up to my office and collected my bag, sweater and laptop, because it seemed pretty clear I wouldn’t be getting any work done there, and locked the door.
    I headed for the front entrance. The sky had darkened and spits of rain hit the glass. Now what? I didn’t want to walk home in the rain. I had an umbrella in my office. Then I remembered. No, I didn’t. I’d used it the last time I’d been caught at the library in the rain.
    I stood in the entryway and looked through the wavy glass in the old wooden doors. The wind was pushing heavy gray clouds across the sky. It was probably only going to be a shower. I could wait here, out of Detective Gordon’s way, until the rain stopped, and then go.
    I heard the murmur of his voice then. I leaned sideways, just far enough to look through the ironwork gate. He was standing by the temporary circulation desk, back to me, talking on his cell phone. His voice seemed to bounce off the library’s high ceiling all the way across to where I was standing.
    I couldn’t help hearing what he was saying. Well, maybe I could have, but I would have had to stuff my fingers in my ears and start humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to do it, and I was trying to stay unobtrusive. After all, Detective Gordon had asked me to leave the building and he already seemed to think I was mixed up in all of this. It was better if I just waited quietly until the rain stopped, and then left.
    “. . . found the primary crime scene,” I heard him say into his phone. He listened. “No. Now would be better . . . Fine.” He snapped his cell shut, and I stepped back out of his line of sight.
    Which didn’t do me any good, because instead of going back to his “primary crime scene” he walked across to the entrance. I stood to one side of the heavy doors and tried to look as though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Which, really, I wasn’t.
    “Ms. Paulson, why are you still here?” he said.
    I gestured at the glass. “It’s raining.”
    “I see that. You can’t make it from here to the parking lot?”
    “I don’t have a car.” And this was the first time I’d regretted that since I’d arrived in Mayville. “I don’t have an umbrella, either,” I added.
    Just then a young man came dashing across the grass, holding a giant golf umbrella—alternating red, green, and blue sections—and a large black case. Detective Gordon unlocked the door for him. The man shook his umbrella, stepped inside and handed it to the detective, who immediately handed it to me.
    “Now you have an umbrella,” he said.
    It looked like a circus umbrella, or, more accurately, like a circus tent. There was a logo for spiced Jamaican rum on one panel. The other police officer opened his mouth, looked from me to Detective Gordon and closed it again. “I’ll make sure you get this